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College Essays & Personal Statements: Writing Essays for the USA

AISL Library Youtube Playlist for College Essays (US-based)

Click here or on the image below to go to the AISL Library's Youtube playlist for college essay videos.

 

Click here to go to the graphic organizer notes template for the above videos. Simply make a copy of the Doc and save to your Drive.

Writing Prompts to Help You Get Started

Choose any of the following Common App writing prompts and generate material for how you would answer them.

You could

  • Mind map ideas for how to respond
  • Create a list of possible life experiences you could use
  • Freewrite for as long or as little as you like in response
  • Talk through any of the prompts with a partner to get ideas together

 

Remember that for Common App essay prompt responses, the word count limit is 650.

Note: The Common Application essay may be changed and adapted before submission to specific universities (you can tweak it for different universities to personalize it to that school).

Common App Essay Prompts

Common App Questions for 2021-22