Essays for College and Career Project
2015-16 Common Application Personal Statement Prompts
Choose one. Word limit: 250 words
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 sh: are your
story.
2. The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or
time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the
experience?
3. Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you
make the same decision again?
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 that is 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.
5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from
childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.
The-why-do-you-want-to-go-to-this-college-or-university Prompt?
For your dream college, write this essay. Word Limit: 250 words
How does ____________________ (NAME OF YOUR DREAM SCHOOL), as you know it now,
satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with
some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to ___________________ (NAME OF
YOUR DREAM SCHOOL).
The Fun Prompts
Choose one. Word limit: 500 words
Orange is the new black, fifty’s the new thirty, comedy is the new rock ‘n’ roll, ____ is the new ____.
What’s in, what’s out, and why is it being replaced?
Joan of Arkansas. Queen Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Babe Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Mash up a historical figure
with a new time period, environment, location, or occupation, and tell us their story.
In French, there is no difference between "conscience" and "consciousness." In Japanese, there is a
word that specifically refers to the splittable wooden chopsticks you get at restaurants. The German
word “fremdschämen” encapsulates the feeling you get when you’re embarrassed on behalf of
someone else. All of these require explanation in order to properly communicate their meaning, and
are, to varying degrees, untranslatable. Choose a word, tell us what it means, and then explain why it
cannot (or should not) be translated from its original language.
Were pH an expression of personality, what would be your pH and why? (Feel free to respond acidly! Do
not be neutral, for that is base!)
Essays for College and Career Project
How are apples and oranges supposed to be compared? Possible answers involve, but are not limited to,
statistics, chemistry, physics, linguistics, and philosophy.
Susan Sontag wrote that "[s]ilence remains, inescapably, a form of speech." Write about an issue or a
situation when you remained silent, and explain how silence may speak in ways that you did or did not
intend. The Aesthetics of Silence, 1967.
"Kermit the Frog famously lamented, 'It's not easy being green.' Defend, challenge, or qualify his claim.
Find x.
How do you feel about Wednesday?
"You have just finished your three hundred page autobiography. Please submit page 217."
Improvise a story, essay, or script that meets all of the following requirements:
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It must include the line “And yes I said yes I will Yes” (Ulysses, by James Joyce).
Its characters may not have superpowers.
Your work has to mention the college to which you are applying, but please, no accounts of a
high school student applying to the University—this is fiction, not autobiography.
Your work must include at least four of the following elements: a paper airplane, a
transformation, a shoe, the invisible hand, two doors, pointillism, a fanciful explanation of the
Pythagorean Theorem, a ventriloquist or ventriloquism, the periodic table of the elements, the
concept of jeong, number two pencils
In Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, he writes a parable entitled "Borges y yo," which translates as "Borges
and I." In it, Borges writes about "the other one," his counterpart, who shares his preference for
"hourglasses, maps, eighteenth century typography, the taste of coffee, and the prose of Stevenson,"
but is not the same as he. "The other one" is the famous author; "the other one" is the one "things
happen to." He concludes this parable with the line, "I do not know which of us has written this page."
Write a page. Who has written it?
Dog and Cat. Coffee and Tea. Gatsby and Tom Joad. Everyone knows there are two types of people in
the world. What are they?