COLLEGE ESSAYS
PERSONAL NARRATIVE ESSAYS: ENGLISH 12
The following prompts offer ideas for the series of three personal
narrative essays you will be writing. They are intended to provide
material for college application essays.
You may use as many of these prompts as you like, but you are
not bound to use any of them; they are suggestions only, meant to
stimulate your thinking. You are welcome to choose essay topics
requested by colleges you are interested in, or to write on one a
topic of your own invention.
However, short-answer questions are not appropriate for these
essays; you need to write those on your own.
Every essay should be a thoughtful and well-developed gem that
shows who you are. Find creative, compelling points of entry into
your self-revelations. Tell stories. Speak in your own voice. Also
check spelling, punctuation, and grammar carefully.
Each of the three essays you write should be 500 - 1000 words,
double-spaced and typed. Give each essay an exciting title that
actively engages the reader. Be sure to identify the topic you
are writing on, through the title or otherwise.
With each essay turn in a short (half-page) typed reflection on
your intent and method. What motivated this essay? What do
you want the reader to take away from it? This “Statement of
Intent” will NOT be graded. However, failure to turn it in will be
reflected in loss of credit (5 points) for “Format and Process” grade.
Turn in an edited and revised draft with the final paper or lose
10 points.
COLLEGE ESSAYS
COLLEGE ESSAY PROMPTS
1) Discuss the importance of names and naming in relation to your own name. Describe
how you were named, what your name means (personally and historically), and how it has
affected your self-image (thus, how you feel about it) and relationships to others.
2) “Traditions are an integral part of our culture. Describe a tradition that is honored by
your family, your friends, or your culture (or describe one you would like to create) and
explain why it is or would be important” (Stanford University Application).
3) Create a portrait of yourself ten years from now. Show clearly the direction your
passions have led you, what motivated you to choose this path, how you arrived here,
what kind of a person you have become. You might consider borrowing techniques from
fiction to draw this lively, engaging portrait. You could also approach it as a promise you
are making to yourself.
4) Tell us about a question that has continued to interest you. What experience or issue
created this question in the first place? Why has it continued to intrigue you? What
would you hope to understand by having it answered?
5) “If you could live in the world of any book, which book would you choose and why?”
(Northwestern Application)
6) “Pick a story of local, national, or international importance from the front page of any
newspaper. Identify your source and give the date the article appeared. Then use your
sense of humor, sense of outrage, sense of justice – or just plain good sense – to explain
why the story engages your attention” (University of Chicago Application).
7) “Discuss some creative work that could serve as a key to the way you see the world
and the way you see yourself in the world. The creative work may be a scientific theory,
a novel, film, poem, song, or any other art form” (University of Chicago Application).
8) Tell the story of an event (a moment or memory) that has shaped your life and helped
mold your character or set your intended course for the future. It may have been a source
of inspiration; events of this nature have been called “crystallizing experiences” (Howard
Gardner). Or it may have revealed a strength you didn’t know you had, taught you a
value you hold deeply, shown you a truth of the human condition. Recount the event and
its impact upon you fully.
COLLEGE ESSAYS
9) “In a pivotal scene of the film American Beauty, a videographer – a dark and
mysterious teen-aged character – records a plastic bag blowing in the wind. He ruminates
on the elusive nature of truth and beauty, and suggests that beauty is everywhere – often
in the most unlikely places and in the quirky details of things. What is something that
you love because it reflects a kind of idiosyncratic beauty – the uneven features of a mutt
you adopted at the pound, a drinking glass with an interesting flaw, the feather boa you
found in the Wal-Mart parking lot? These things can reveal (or conceal) our identity, so
describe something that tells us who you are (or aren’t)” (University of Chicago
Application; this question was inspired by an applicant, Jeremiah VanScoyoc of Ohio).
10) “How has the place in which you live influenced the person you are? Define ‘place’
in any way that you like -- as a context, a house, a city, a community, a country, a point in
time (Stanford University Application).
11) “Inevitably certain things – songs, household objects, familiar smells – bring us
instantly back to some past moment in our lives. Start an essay by describing one such
thing and see where it takes you” (University of Chicago Application).
12) Describe your greatest accomplishment or greatest trial (and note that these may be
one and the same). Be sure to use the thesis and conclusion to clarify why this
trial/achievement was a valid and tremendous test of your mettle.
13) Open with a quote that has significance for you in terms of who you are and/or what
you believe and to what you aspire. Your discovery of this apt quote may become part of
your story of self-discovery.
14) Write a thoughtful, well-developed essay about something you used to believe but no
longer do -- or vice versa. (Avoid Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny.)
15) Write an autobiographical essay from an unusual and engaging perspective or in a
distinctive style. You might use selected journal entries -- especially if you have kept a
journal for several years -- to show changes in your views and perceptions. You might
offer us two or three striking of images of yourself at different times and places to
illustrate critical junctures in your life. The key, as always, is to reveal the original and
passionate ways in which you think, live, understand, and interact with your world.
COLLEGE ESSAYS