brainstorming the college essay

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How to Brainstorm a College Essay

June 10, 2024

Brainstorming often gets a bad rap. Many people either find it completely useless or outright hate it. Quick, try it—what do you think of when you hear “brainstorm”? A group of students sitting awkwardly around a whiteboard, waiting for someone else to share their idea first? Staring at a blank page with ever-increasing bewilderment slash terror? Producing a list of ideas, only to think every single one of them is a dumpster fire? Now, it’s time to write your college essay, and word on the street is that you should brainstorm first—but what does that even mean, and do you have to do it? If you’ve ever wondered how college essay brainstorming works or how to brainstorm college essay ideas, we’ll be getting into all that and more in today’s blog.

What is brainstorming?

In general, brainstorming is the process of producing ideas, whether individually or in a group. Although it can be employed in a number of different contexts, from board rooms to PTA meetings, we’re going to focus on its relevance to the college essay writing process in particular.

Why should I brainstorm college essay ideas?

The goal of brainstorming is not to simply transcribe the ideas you already have but to unlock ideas that you didn’t even know you had.

For example, it’s very likely that your brainstorm will reveal forgotten memories or events. It almost always generates surprising connections. And at the very least, it will help you understand why you want to write about a particular topic, which is an essential piece of information to keep in mind as you move forward.

Brainstorming college essay ideas is also a way to overcome a fear of the blank page, which is a legitimate form of writer’s block. Usually, writers either feel like they have no ideas or so many ideas that committing to just one is causing anxiety. Either way, it’s debilitating. Don’t worry, though—a good brainstorming process will either produce at least a few viable ideas or help you pare down your list.

Finally, brainstorming and writing are creative processes, which means we can better understand what goes on in our brains—and develop new ways to spark creativity during both acts—by delving into literature on the subject. For starters, according to many researchers , creativity is often characterized by an interplay between divergent and convergent thinking, or the process of producing as many ideas as possible in a spontaneous, unfiltered way and then narrowing those ideas down in a logical, evaluative way. Fortunately, both types of thinking can be harnessed during the brainstorming process to help you choose your best possible topic.

Do you always have to brainstorm?

Nope! Some students do enter the college essay process with a very clear sense of what they want to write about. This tends to happen when 1) you have an all-consuming passion or 2) you have undergone a significant challenge or life event. In either case, you just can’t imagine writing about anything else but your topic.

For example, when I wrote my college personal statement, I knew right away that I wanted to write about writing. I spent most of my free time seriously crafting and revising fiction, and it was a part of my life that felt indistinguishable from me as a person. To know me, I felt that admissions readers had to know that I loved to write, what my writing meant to me, and how I wanted it to influence my future. Although I spent many hours refining how the essay would begin and unfold, the topic itself felt non-negotiable.

So if you already know your Common App topic, that’s incredible. Check that item off your to-do list!

That said, students who enter the essay process knowing what they want to write about are few and far between. For this reason, we ask all our students to at least humor us with the brainstorming process, even if only to gather potential ideas for future supplemental essays. Moreover, many students are stuck between 2 to 3 potential topics, and engaging in brainstorming exercises tends to clarify the way forward.

How do I brainstorm college essay ideas?

Have a piece of paper or word processing document ready, and let’s begin!

College Essay Brainstorming Step #1: Set the mood.

Before you try to brainstorm college essay ideas, set yourself up for success by evaluating where and how you work best. Do you like being in a quiet space, listening to instrumental music, or being outside? Do you enjoy physically writing your ideas down on a piece of paper, using a digital mind mapping tool, or speaking your ideas into a voice recorder? Maybe you need to be at your desk in your room with some instrumental pop in your headphones and a snack at the ready, or sitting outside at your favorite café with a coffee. Whatever your ideal set-up is, get it ready!

If you need to center yourself before you sit down, try going for a quick walk, doing a meditation, or listening to some music that makes you feel positive or motivated. Feel free to pause and do this again at any point during your brainstorming process if you begin to feel too unfocused.

College Essay Brainstorming Step #2: Iterate.

To kickstart the creative process, you’ll want to activate your DMN, or default mode network, via divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is the process of amassing as many ideas as possible in a spontaneous, non-judgmental way. There is a great deal of freedom at this stage so it’s important not to censor yourself, even if some of your ideas seem far-fetched or unlikely. Why? That far-fetched or unlikely idea will spark even more ideas, some of which may be surprisingly perfect. Bottom line: write down anything (yes, anything!) that comes to mind.

So how do you do this? In our opinion, brainstorming works best when it’s semi-structured. Instead of sitting down in front of a blank Google Doc and waiting for inspiration (spoiler alert: you’ll be there for a while), use targeted brainstorming questions and lists to help, like Nancie Atwell’s Writing Territories or Georgia Heard’s heart maps . Set a timer for each exercise if you’d like–10-15 minutes is usually sufficient, but feel free to go beyond that.

College Essay Brainstorming (Continued)

Still not sure where to start? Try out the following list of questions, inspired by the Common App prompts . Bullet point as many ideas/experiences as possible underneath each, even if they feel silly or “out there.” We also hereby give you permission to doodle, draw, use different colors, go crazy with Post-It notes, or whatever you feel like you need to do to get this first step done.

• When you think of your background (racial, cultural, socioeconomic, family, etc), what comes to mind? What about your background is most important to you?
• When you think of your identity (religious, family, language, sexual, gender, etc.), what comes to mind? What about your identity is most important to you?
• If you had one hobby or interest that you could pursue forever, what would it be?
• Do you have any special talents (artistic, athletic, etc) that you’ve poured a great deal of time and energy into? What are they?
• Have you ever experienced a challenge, setback, or failure? What was it?
• Have you ever questioned or challenged a belief? An idea? Which ones?
• When have you felt deeply happy or thankful? Why?
• What have you accomplished that you are most proud of?
• Have you ever had a realization that made you see the world differently? What was it?
• What topics keep you up at night? What sends you down a Google or Wikipedia rabbit hole? What could you research, write, read, or talk about for hours? Make a list.

Although you might naturally gravitate towards certain types of brainstorming exercises, try to keep an open mind. Sometimes, the strangest brainstorming activities produce the best ideas. In addition, aim to complete more than one exercise—we typically have our students do 2 to 3 exercises in various modalities, such as sketching, drawing, and listing.

College Essay Brainstorming Step #3: Evaluate.

When we underwent Step #2, we eschewed evaluative thinking and tried to let our brains be as “unfiltered” as possible. Now, we want to turn that evaluative thinking back on and start to filter what ideas or topics would be the best possible options for this particular essay. This part of the process stimulates the CCN, or cognitive control network, and is also known as convergent thinking. Before you do this, remind yourself of the point of the Common App essay: t o add dimension to the rest of your application . This will help you evaluate your ideas according to your essay’s purpose.

For example, let’s say you completed Nancie Atwell’s Writing Territories. Under “Pets” you listed “Mr. Sparkles Jr.”, AKA the guppy that made the journey to Fish Heaven when you were seven. This might be a great topic for an essay about a childhood memory, but likely wouldn’t be a good Common App topic. (Unless Mr. Sparkles inspired your love of ichthyology and you now give presentations at your local elementary school about caring for pet fish, in which case, we stand corrected.)

Two ways to engage in evaluative thinking:

• Go back through your exercises and code each of your responses. Circle the responses that you’re most interested in or drawn to. Cross out the responses you don’t want to write about or feel uninterested in. Underline the responses that you’re not sure about.
• Read through your exercises. Highlight your top five ideas. Then, circle your top three.</li></li>

College Essay Brainstorming Step #4: Test your ideas.

When you’ve narrowed your brainstorm down to a few ideas, a great way to decide between them is to do a quick test run. You can do this quickly and easily by freewriting. When freewriting, you write down everything you can think of about this topic—anecdotes, sensory details, connections, people, etc.—for at least 10 minutes without stopping or censoring yourself. You can write in paragraph form or use bullet points. For example, a freewrite about Mr. Sparkles, Jr. might look like this:

Mr. Sparkles Jr was a gift from my godmother. I added him to my tank happily and he soon became my favorite fish because he was different from all the other fish. He was black-and-white striped and I used to sit for hours watching him swim around the tank. I remember coming home from school and my mother told me that he had died, and my dad had already flushed him down the toilet.  Devastated, I cried for hours and my godmother even brought me a backpack with fish printed on it, with one that looked like Mr. Sparkles so that I could remember him. I think I still have that backpack somewhere.

Anyway, it was also the first time that I had thought about death. I wondered if Mr. Sparkles had felt anything when he died, or if the other fish in the tank were sad, or whether there was anything I could have done to help him stay alive longer?

After you finish a freewrite for each topic, see which topic satisfies all three of the below conditions:

• The topic feels interesting and/or exciting to you and gives you room to explore.
• The topic shows the reader something positive about you: a trait, a value, a way of thinking, etc.
• The topic is recent, or you are able to draw recent connections (i.e., the essay does not start in first grade and end in third grade, with no connection to present day).

You can do this a few times—there are no rules!

Keep going until you narrow down to one topic or discover that you can combine more than one topic because they have a hidden connection (this is always exciting).

Okay, seriously…what topic should I pick, though?!

If you’re stuck between a few possible topics, you might be wondering “What does it matter what I want to write about? What topic is the strongest one for my college application?!”

Okay, hear us out—the topic that you are most excited to write about, that presents you in a positive light, and that is recent—IS the strongest one for your college application! Not only will the resultant essay be authentic to you and demonstrative of you (which is the whole point) but research suggests that revision is most effective when you are invested in your topic . So if Person in Your Life thinks it would be the best move for you to write about your extensive hand-sewn collection of mini animals and how it showcases your creativity, but you’re like “eh…” listen to that gut feeling! You like your mini animals, sure. But maybe what you really want to write about is how you overcame the fear of learning to scuba dive .

Neither topic is inherently better or worse than the other, and neither will necessarily strengthen your application more than the other. The topic that will strengthen your application is the one that you are excited to write about and feel committed to working on over an extended period of time.

Final step…write!

You can start by creating an outline or writing a 1-2 page (double-spaced) topic exploration draft. This can also be called a zero draft or a brain dump. Call it whatever you want to make it less intimidating.

Final Thoughts — College Essay Brainstorming

Brainstorming college essay ideas doesn’t have to be overly stressful or intimidating. If you do it right, it can actually be (dare we say) low-stress and enlightening.

Want to work with one of College Transitions’ highly skilled essay coaches? Click here to see available packages or schedule a free consultation.

Need more resources? You might consider checking out the following:

• Common App Essay Prompts
• 10 Instructive Common App Essay Examples
• College Application Essay Topics to Avoid
• UC Essay Examples
• 150 Journal Prompts
• How to Start a College Essay
• How to End a College Essay
• “Why This College?” Essay Examples
• Best College Essay Help
• College Essay

Kelsea Conlin

Kelsea holds a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from Tufts University, a graduate certificate in College Counseling from UCLA, and an MA in Teaching Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her short fiction is forthcoming in Chautauqua .

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Home / News / Academic Writing Tip: 8 Brainstorming Techniques

Academic Writing Tip: 8 Brainstorming Techniques

So, you’ve read and re-read the academic writing assignment that you received from your professor, and now you’re staring at a blank page.

Does your mind feel as blank as the page? Are you Frozen by fear? Rubbing your eyes with exhaustion?

Whether you’re writing an essay for a community college in Boston, Massachusetts or a university in New England, USA, you need to start somewhere. Brainstorming means you use your imagination and prior knowledge to collect thoughts. After gathering a great quantity of ideas, you select the highest quality ideas.

Filling that empty white document can feel like leaping into unknown icy water. Brainstorming is the way to warm up for a deep dive into the EAP topic.

Brainstorming begins with simple questions. What do you know about the topic? What do you want to learn about the topic?

As you brainstorm, you journey farther down the academic writing quest. How do you narrow down a topic into a thesis? How do you gather the examples and evidence necessary for an academic essay?

Here are EAP brainstorming strategies to jumpstart the engine of your creativity.

Brainstorming tip #1: Freewriting

Do you have no ideas? Or the opposite problem—too many ideas?

Freewriting means what it sounds like—you’re free to write whatever comes to mind. The point is not to make it perfect—not even necessarily to make it good—but just to put thoughts on paper—no rules, no revising. You can even write about how you don’t know what to write about.

The only limit you should set for yourself is that you write for a specific period of time—let’s say 30 minutes—or for a specific number of pages—let’s say 2 pages. Non-stop activity gets the juices flowing, and a concrete goal gives you satisfaction. Here’s an example of freewriting:

This essay is supposed to be about the Boston Tea Party but I don’t know anything about US history except that the American Revolution happened a long time ago (when???) somewhere in Massachusetts or maybe I’m wrong. I can’t think of anything else to say and now the clock says two minutes, I’ll keep babbling anyway. Boston, MA, politics, tea. My grandmother used to make tea when I stopped by after my English courses. But that’s not useful for this essay. Or maybe there’s a connection. Hmmm… I remember the professor talked about the taxes in the New English states (colonies?) and my grandmother used to complain about paying high taxes at the market and…

Freewriting stimulates your brain the same way physical exercise wakes up your mind.

Brainstorming tip #2: Making a Cube

Draw a cube in your notebook. Each of the six sides has a task:

Side 1: Describe the topic.

Side 2: Compare the topic.

Side 3: Connect the topic.

Side 4: Classify the topic.

Side 5: Argue for or against the topic.

Side 6: Personalize the topic.

Instead of those 6 tasks, you could replace those verbs with other academic tasks: apply, analyze, question, connect, define, classify, associate, or explain cause and effect—whichever inspire ideas.

Imagine your topic is attending university in the U.S. Next to each point on the cube, you would write words and phrases inspired by the verb at hand:

Side 1: Describe: Exciting, difficult, expensive, growing opportunities, expensive, valuable.

Side 2: Compare: Different from my country. USA = more essay writing, dorms with roommates, critical thinking, fewer standardized exams and lectures, smaller classes.

Side 3: Connect: student visa policies, US immigration law, IELTS, TOEFL iBT, travel restrictions from covid-19, globalization means more English at work.

Side 4: Classify: community colleges (Holyoke, Greenfield), state universities (UMASS Boston), private ivy league (Harvard) graduate schools, MBA, BA, MFA programs.  

Side 5: Argue for : opens doors, better jobs, international workplace, investment in future, social networking, broadens horizons.

Side 6: Personalize: my cousin > engineering degree, MIT internship, campus resources help with culture shock (which worries me.) IELTS stresses me out!!!!  Way to avoid?

This brainy approach works if you like approaching topics from different angles.

Brainstorming tip #3: Clustering

When you cluster, you draw bubbles and connect words and concepts associated with the topic—anything that comes to mind.

This visual method works when you have a lot of random thoughts and you are trying to “see” connections.

Brainstorming tip #4: Bulleting

With this technique, you make bulleted lists with concepts, terms, and ideas. This can help you narrow down from the first list to a second list. The list on the left contains general bullet points, while the list on the right expands on a single bullet to delve deeper.

This method works great if you’re an orderly person who likes making lists.

Brainstorming tip #5: Venn Diagram

  The famous Venn diagram technique works well for brainstorming differences and similarities between two topics. You draw two intersecting circles and write the qualities they share in the middle where the circles intersect and the qualities that are unique in the left and right spaces. For example, let’s say you’re brainstorming differences and similarities between two cities in Massachusetts, Boston and Northampton.

This famous brainstorming method is used in the academic and business worlds because it so clearly shows differences and similarities.

To analyze relationships among three topics, you can make a Venn diagram with three circles. The 3-circle helps visualize and understand complex connections. You brainstorm three basic questions. Which qualities are unique to each? Which traits do any two topics have in common? Which similarities are shared by all three topics?

Brainstorming tip #6: Tree diagram

The tree diagram begins with a central idea that branches off into categories or supporting ideas.

Imagine you’re brainstorming different types of schools in US higher education.

Tree diagrams are perfect for brainstorming classification essays. You could also draw tree diagrams to brainstorm effects, starting with a cause at the top and branching off into increasingly specific downstream effects. Pretty cool, huh?

Brainstorming tip #7: Journalist Dice

Dice aren’t just toys for games and gambling–they can be a tool for writing. Rolling journalist dice is a stimulating way to flesh out narrative essays. Each side of the die corresponds to one of the 6 question words. To make the game fun, roll a die, and write down one answer the question every time you roll. Roll at least a dozen times to write down a variety of details and ideas.

In addition to building a narrative essay, this brainstorming technique can help you develop a compelling story for your college application essay. For the tired and uninspired writer, the game element of rolling dice makes the writing process more engaging and enjoyable. 

Brainstorming tip #8: T diagram

This method works well if you like thinking in terms of opposites.  Can you say “On the one hand” and “On the other hand”? 

What’s next in the writing process?

After your fast and furious brainstorm, the next step is to create an outline. When you outline, you pick your best and brightest ideas. Then you begin organizing them into a coherent, linear argument. You select and sort supporting points, evidence, examples, and elaboration. To learn more about outlining, click here for the next article in our academic writing series. 

The best way to improve your writing is to join an academic or business English course . With guidance from an expert instructor and feedback from a community of peers, you can master the art of academic writing.

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Blog > Common App , Essay Advice > 25 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

25 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you’re in the process of starting your college essay, you know how hard it is to come up with a good topic.

Should you go the lighthearted, humorous route? Or should you reveal something serious about yourself? Of all your experiences, how do you know the best one to write about? 

Worse, how do you know if your idea is cliche? Or, alternatively, what if you’ve tried too hard to be unique?

And with all the conflicting advice out there about what should and shouldn’t be in a college essay, the process gets even more confusing.

But there’s a foolproof method to cut through the noise and find a college essay topic that’s right for you.

It all starts with a brainstorming exercise.

Let’s get into it.

What is brainstorming?

Have you ever tried to turn nothing into something? It’s almost like writing defies the laws of physics. But that’s what you have to do when you come up with a topic.

Brainstorming helps you get there. It is a type of pre-writing process. We call it a “brainstorm” because it’s a way to corral the thought tornado that’s spinning out of control in your brain.

Like its counterpart “free writing,” brainstorming is a place for anything and everything. It’s a chance for you to do a brain dump and get your thoughts on to paper.

Brainstorming is the main way writers go from no ideas to lots of ideas in a short amount of time. It also saves you time and effort in the long run because it helps you weed out all the bad ideas before you waste your time trying to write an essay around them.

When you brainstorming, you’ve got two goals: 1) identify the thoughts that come to you, and 2) write them down. Some people do image-based mind maps, others create linear outlines, and others have their own individual processes altogether.

Today, your brainstorming process will consist of answering some pointed questions to get you thinking about the best college essay topics for you.

How do you brainstorm a college essay?

Brainstorming your college essay is an essential step because your essay topic determines how much an admissions officer is able to learn about you.

Picture yourself as an admissions officer. You’ve already read 25 applications today, and now you’re on your 26th. You flip to the essay, and you see immediately that it’s an essay about winning a soccer tournament. You’ve already read three essays about soccer tournaments today. Hopeful, you proceed through the essay. To your dismay, the essay’s message—that hard work and determination will get you far in life—is almost exactly the same as the previous three. The soccer essays start to blend together, and you can’t quite remember whose is whose.

That’s the problem with overused, cliche, and surface-level topics. They aren’t interesting or memorable. Because they remain on the surface of who you are, they don’t tell an admissions officer the information they need to know to admit you.

Instead, we believe that all college essays should revolve around one of your core strengths.

A core strength is an inherent and positive trait, talent, or characteristic that shapes how you live in the world.

Here are a few examples:

• Social intelligence
• Intellectual curiosity
• Passion for justice
• Positive outlook

Whether your strength is your wisdom, entrepreneurial spirit, compassion, or problem-solving skills, your college essay should reflect a strength that makes you you.

Because the purpose of a college essay is to help you get admitted to college. (If you need a refresher on the ins and outs of college essays, look to our How to Write a College Essay guide.) Writing an essay that speaks to your strengths gives admissions officers more reasons to admit you.

A strengths-based essay will help them get to know the real you, and they’ll be able to envision how your strengths will contribute to their college community. It’s all about crafting a cohesive application narrative .

So when it comes to brainstorming, you need to think of topic ideas that accomplish two tasks:

Showcase one (or two) of your core strengths.

Give admissions officers meaningful and vulnerable insight into who you are.

Much easier said than done, right? That’s where brainstorming comes in.

Brainstorming relieves the pressure of getting it right the first time. It helps you compile and sort through all your memories, experiences, strengths, and values until you find one that works.

Let’s talk about the college essay brainstorming exercise.

Brainstorming Exercise Breakdown

To help you brainstorm college essay topic ideas that are strengths-based and meaningful, we’ve put together a list of questions.

These questions come from some of the most common college essay topics. They aren’t essay prompts, and they’re not intended to be the question from which you write your final college essay.

Instead, they are leading questions that will get you thinking about what strengths you have and how they show up in your life. You’ll be able to use your answers as a starting point to find your topic and write your first draft.

Feel free to copy and paste these questions into a word processor and answer each of them in turn. Or answer only the ones that call to you the most. Write down as much or as little as you want for each, but try to focus on concrete experiences and genuine reflections.

We’ll go over a couple of examples, but let’s first look at the questions.

25 Brainstorming Questions

• What are your biggest strengths? Why?
• If you could only choose one topic to talk about for the rest of your life, what would it be?
• Have you traveled? If so, what did you do or learn?
• If you could choose any meal to represent you, what would it be and why?
• What is the most interesting part of your daily life?
• Describe a time when you felt inexperienced at something.
• Is there a question about the universe that keeps you up at night?
• Where do you feel most at home?
• What’s the most sensory experience you’ve ever had?
• Have you had a job? What was your most memorable experience? What did you learn?
• What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you?
• Write about a time when you felt out of place.
• Are there any social issues you’re passionate about? If so, what have you done to contribute to the cause?
• Finish this sentence: “I feel most creative when I…”
• Write about your most memorable classroom experience.
• Describe a time when you felt like you genuinely helped someone.
• What would your friends say is your greatest strength? What would your family say is your greatest strength?
• What role do you play when working in a group or team?
• What’s the most profound thing that’s happened to you?
• Are you a leader? If so, how, when, and in what parts of your life?
• What about yourself makes you proud?
• Explain the hardest problem you’ve ever solved.
• Picture yourself at 90 years old, nice and wrinkly. What would your 90-year-old self say about who you are today?
• What are three things you know to be true?
• What motivates you?

Is your brain storming yet?

To take your answers a step further, you can also ask yourself a bonus follow-up question. For each question you answer, consider this: How does what you’ve written here connect to one of your core strengths? Which core strength is it?

Brainstorm Example

Now on to the examples. Notice how each response has an associated core strength. The question responses are free-form. Not every idea they include will be usable, and grammar and organization don’t matter at all. Each response includes good sensory details and lots of ideas about what comes to mind for each question.

#14) Finish this sentence: “I feel most creative when I…”

Core strength: Creativity

I feel most creative when I play my cello. I love practicing and listening to my metronome and trying to figure out the difficult passages. It’s like a mixture of science and art. Playing in an orchestra really moves me because of the way the music comes alive and you can feel everyone’s art coming together to make new art. But my solo recitals are my favorite. I love being on stage in front of a crowd and getting to share my art with them, especially when I come up with a creative take on a classic piece. I used to hate recitals but ever since I changed my perspective from fear of failure to making art, I’ve learned to enjoy them more.

#8) Where do you feel most at home?

Core strength: Compassion

I feel most at home in my grandma’s kitchen. It always smells of freshly-baked bread, and everything has a slight but permanent dusting of flour. I feel at home there because that’s where I learned to do my favorite hobby: baking. My grandma taught me everything I know about how to bake. Nothing says “home” like a warm chocolate chip cookie with a little bit of sea salt. My grandma is my favorite person and she’s always inspired me. Now that she’s unable to bake for herself, I bake for her. Her kitchen is my office. I know every inch of the kitchen like the back of my hand. I’m learning new baking tricks on YouTube, and I tell her all about them when I visit after school. She’s taught and given me so much, so I just want to return the favor.

See how easy that was? They’re quick answers that are rich with description and ideas. When you write your own, it’ll be the kindling for your college essay.

When you’re ready, go through each question that calls to you and write down exactly what comes to mind. From there, you’ll have a list of topics to choose from.

Key Takeways

Now it’s your turn. Copy and paste the questions to get started. We use a similar brainstorming process with all the students we work with, and it’s a surefire way to find the right college essay topic for you. Once your brainstorm is done, check out the college essay writing guide or the Essay Academy to transform your brainstorm from a rough topic to a full-blown essay.

Liked that? Try this next.

The Incredible Power of a Cohesive College Application

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College Essay Brainstorming: 4 Exercises to Think Outside the Box

Create a unique college essay with these 4 exercises. Don't miss out on crafting an impressive and memorable essay that’s sure to stand out. Dive into the world of impactful college essay topics by reading this article.

A prompt, a blank page, and a goal: to get into your top-choice university. Writing a standout college essay can be an overwhelming task! With so many other applicants vying for a limited number of spots, finding a topic that truly sets you apart from the crowd can be difficult. You have to be extra thoughtful if you're trying to write an Ivy-League-level personal statement . That's why brainstorming college essay topics is arguably the most important step of the process.But where do you startThis post will explore four exercises for brainstorming college essay topics that can help you think outside the box and find your story.

Why is brainstorming important for your college essay

Brainstorming ideas for your college essay, like the Common App personal statement , is probably the most important step in the writing process. This step allows you to generate various ideas and explore different aspects of your experiences, personality, and interests.For example, through brainstorming, you can identify the key themes and messages that you want to convey in your essay and develop a clear sense of what story you want to tell. Reflecting on your experiences, thinking about what you have learned, and understanding what has shaped you is almost more important than the writing itself!Fortunately, there are a variety of techniques and strategies that can help you pull ideas out and find inspiration for your personal statement.We'll explore some effective brainstorming methods and provide tips to help you unlock your creativity and generate unique, engaging essay topics. Then, if you still need some extra support with uncovering an idea you're confident about, Lessonpal's College Essay Writing tutors are available to help you out.

What makes college essays different from normal essays What's the point

First, let's start by changing our thinking. Instead of viewing the college essay as an obstacle, view it as a tool!Some application components, such as SAT and ACT scores or grades, provide a quantitative snapshot of a student's academic abilities.On the other hand, the personal statement (and other essays) serves as a way for students to showcase a piece of themselves that isn't shown elsewhere.In effect, the essay helps college admissions officers gain insight into who the student is beyond their academic achievements and extracurricular activities.Also, a well-written college essay can demonstrate what a student would contribute to the university community.

The Spongebob effect

A great example of a creative, insightful essay surfaced recently. One high schooler, Kalissa Persaud, went viral on Tik Tok for her college essay about Spongebob ! You might be thinking that a personal statement about Spongebob sounds immature...but think again.By using Spongebob as a lens to explore her childhood memories, Kalissa provided a glimpse into her aspirations and who she is beyond her academic achievements. And it paid off with admission to top schools like UCLA![embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@kalissapersaud/video/7195725368974921006[/embed]Kalissa's essay about Spongebob is an excellent demonstration of how seemingly silly topics can actually be ways to stand out. Hers was unconventional, well-written, and showcased her voice and personality, which is exactly what you want to do.

Exercises to get started with college essay brainstorming

1. freewriting.

Freewriting is a great exercise to get started with brainstorming for your college essay. To do this exercise, first pick a life experience (i.e. a volunteer experience, a sports team involvement, a life event, etc.). Then, set a timer for 10 minutes and write continuously - without stopping or editing. Write down anything that comes to mind, even if it seems unimportant.The goal is to keep writing and see where your thoughts take you. This exercise can help you uncover new ideas and insights about yourself that you may not have considered before. Once you have finished, review what you have written and look for any themes to use as a starting point for your essay.For example, Topic: Volunteering at a local animal shelter "I remember the first time I walked into the animal shelter. The smell of disinfectant and wet fur hit me as soon as I stepped through the door. I was nervous, unsure of what to expect, but excited to be there.The woman at the front desk greeted me with a warm smile and asked if I was there to volunteer. I nodded, feeling a bit intimidated by her confidence and enthusiasm. She handed me a clipboard with a volunteer agreement and told me to read it over and sign it before she took me on a tour of the facility.As I walked through the rows of cages, I felt my heart break for each animal I saw. Dogs barked and whined, and cats meowed and hissed. Some animals were friendly and eager for attention, while others cowered in fear at the back of their cages. I wondered what their stories were, how they had ended up here. I made a mental note to ask one of the staff members about their history."The key to this exercise is to keep going to get your ideas out! Let your fingers write or type without worrying about editing.

2. Brainstorming with friends

Brainstorming with friends can be a great way to generate ideas for your college essay. Gather a group of trusted friends or family members and ask them to help you develop topics or themes you can write about.It may feel awkward at first, but ask them to share what they admire about you, what they view as your accomplishments, or what their favorite memories with you are. Friends often notice things about you that you don't see yourself!You can also ask them for feedback on your initial ideas or get their opinions on what they think would make a great essay topic.Overall, brainstorming with others can help you gain new insights you may not have thought of.

3. Mind mapping

Mind mapping is a visual technique that involves creating a diagram to organize information and ideas.To start a mind map for brainstorming college essay topics, write a central topic in the middle of a piece of paper and draw a circle around it.Then, draw branches extending from the circle and write related sub-topics or ideas on each branch. Keep branching out and adding details until you have a comprehensive map of ideas to draw from.

Mind mapping can help you identify connections and relationships between aspects of your life and can also help you visualize your thought process.

4. Exploring topics through other writing prompts

Using writing prompts other than the actual essay prompt can be a great way to jumpstart your brainstorming process! You can find writing prompts online, in books, or from a teacher or mentor.Some prompts might ask you to reflect on a specific experience or challenge, while others might ask to imagine a hypothetical scenario or consider a philosophical question.Responding to these prompts allows you to generate ideas and explore different aspects of your identity, values, and interests that could be relevant to your college essay.

The big picture

Brainstorming exercises can be challenging, but with the right tools and exercises, it can also be a rewarding and enjoyable experience. The exercises mentioned, such as freewriting, brainstorming with friends, mind mapping, and using writing prompts, can help students tap into their creativity.Also, seeking assistance from a writing tutor can provide valuable guidance and feedback throughout the essay writing process. Lessonpal offers writing tutors specializing in college essay writing , providing students with the necessary support to craft an impressive and memorable essay.

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College Essay Brainstorming: Where to Start

Bonus Material: College Essay Brainstorming Questions  

The college essay is an extremely important component of your college application. Yes, college admissions officers do care about standardized test scores, academic transcripts, extracurricular activities, and letters of recommendation.

All of these application components can help officers assess a student’s academic and professional potential (and much more).

The college application essay, however, gives students a chance to share their unique voice with an admissions officer. It’s like a brief interview, where students can give officers a powerful glimpse of who they are outside of their application in roughly 650 words.

So what do you say in those 650 words? How do you pick the right essay topic?

It’s all about the brainstorming process. In general, the more time you can devote to gathering potential essay topics  before  you start writing, the better. Gathering this material can also be helpful for writing supplemental essays down the road.

In this post, we provide actionable tips for guiding your college essay brainstorming process. After reading this article, students will be well poised to gather topics and eventually select the “right” essay topic .

We also give students access to 30 free college essay brainstorming questions to get started. Grab these below.

Download College Essay Brainstorming Questions

Here’s what we cover:

The Importance of College Essay Brainstorming

• 8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips
• Bonus : 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

We define the college essay as a “demonstration of character, values, and/or voice.” It is an introspective, personal essay that (ideally) adds significant value to a student’s overall application.

Many students are not well-versed in writing this kind of essay. Indeed, most students are familiar with the concept of the academic essay, with its neat five paragraphs. Very few have had a lot of time in high school classrooms to write deeply reflective pieces, and concise ones at that. (Remember: you only have 650 words or fewer to craft your response!)

That’s why brainstorming is so essential  to the college essay writing process. It’s your key to pinpointing the right topic, which we define as one with the potential to generate an essay that aligns with these 7 winning qualities .

It can also be valuable for gathering potential topics for supplemental essay responses, which many competitive colleges require.

For these very reasons, we spend a significant amount of time brainstorming in our college essay mentoring programs and summer workshops. Students who are able to gather a lot of material in this time tend to have an easier job down the road choosing the right topic, creating an outline, and eventually writing that first draft.

What’s more, they might surprise themselves in what they are able to pull from their many life experiences! It’s not uncommon for an essay student to choose a certain topic they never would have considered prior to brainstorming.

The tips outlined in the next section reflect this great value of brainstorming, and are the same we offer our college essay students at the start of their process.

8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips

Don’t let that blank page intimidate you! Follow these tips to guide your brainstorming process and remember that this stage should and will take time.

1. Know the standards

Students should feel very comfortable with colleges’ general expectations for the essay  before  they start brainstorming. If you haven’t done so already, please check out the following PrepMaven posts:

• What is the College Essay?

7 Qualities of a Successful College Essay

• 11 College Essays That Worked
• What College Admissions Officers Look For

It can also be helpful to review the Common Application’s essay prompts . While students don’t necessarily have to respond to a  specific  prompt, these provide insight into the type of essay colleges are seeking.

2. No topic is “too small” (but some are “too big”)

Students only have 650 words (or fewer) to write their essays. That’s not a lot of space! For this reason, don’t shy away from seemingly “small” topics as you brainstorm.

One student who earned Ivy League acceptance, for example, wrote about her passion for hot sauce in her college essay!

On the same note, if you come up with “big” topics, such as cultural identity, a long-term extracurricular activity, or a religious belief, do your best to highlight specific components of these topics, or one representative experience. The best college essays don’t say everything there is to say about such large topics. Rather, they focus skillfully on one smaller component of a potentially bigger picture.

3. Write down all the details for every topic

When you land upon a topic, mine it for details. Write down everything you can think of about that experience, idea, or memory. Many of our students like to use bulleted lists in a Google Doc for doing this.

It’s important to squeeze out every possible detail so that you can fully assess a topic’s potential! In many cases, such details will become college essay topics themselves.

4. Work by category

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the possible topics out there–and don’t worry, this is common–gather ideas by category. Here are some sample category examples:

• Travel experiences
• Extracurricular activities
• Family life
• Culture and heritage
• Interests and hobbies
• Challenges (non-academic)

Categories can help you build a general portrait of who you are, at least to start. Once you have a few ideas per category, start diving deeper into those ideas and generating further details about each one.

5. Ask the right questions

It is often easier for students to generate a rich pool of potential topics by answering questions designed to encourage deep reflection and introspection. Of course, this begs the question: what should I be asking myself?

Take a look at these 30 questions  we ask our students in our college essay workshops and mentorship programs at the beginning of their process.

Once you’ve answered these questions fully and to the best of your ability, you’ll be poised for essay topic selection.

6. Keep it to yourself, mostly

Many college essay students risk writing about what their parents, friends, or teachers want them to write about. Others risk writing “what colleges want to hear.” Yet authenticity is one of the most important qualities of a successful college essay!

That’s why we encourage students to brainstorm independently. You are the only one in the world most familiar with your life experiences, after all! Consult family members, friends, or mentors only once you are further along in the essay writing process, or if you need clarification on the details of a specific experience. This will ensure you gather topics that are true to you first and foremost.

7. Maintain orderly notes

Brainstorming can be messy. Establish a system early on for maintaining orderly notes! Some tools that can come in handy:

• Bulleted or numbered lists
• Index cards
• Color-coding (digital or manual)
• Google Docs

8. Consider takeaways for each topic

As you compile topics, save time and start thinking in terms of “takeaways” for each. This will allow you to assess a topic’s potential for demonstrating your character, values, and/or voice.

Ask yourself for each topic : What values does this showcase? What does this say about me specifically? What meaningful reflections does it invite? What aspect of my voice is apparent here?

Download 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

You can jumpstart your college essay brainstorming process right now by downloading our college essay brainstorming questions.

With this free download, you’ll get:

• 30 of the best brainstorming questions we ask our students
• Guidance for next steps

Kate is a graduate of Princeton University. Over the last decade, Kate has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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• Choosing Your College Essay Topic | Ideas & Examples

Choosing Your College Essay Topic | Ideas & Examples

Published on October 25, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on July 3, 2023.

A strong essay topic sets you up to write a unique, memorable college application essay . Your topic should be personal, original, and specific. Take time to brainstorm the right topic for you.

Table of contents

What makes a good topic, brainstorming questions to get started, discover the best topic for you, how to make a common topic compelling, frequently asked questions about college application essays, other interesting articles.

Here are some guidelines for a good essay topic:

• It’s focused on you and your experience
• It shares something different from the rest of your application
• It’s specific and original (not many students could write a similar essay)
• It affords the opportunity to share your positive stories and qualities

In most cases, avoid topics that

• Reflect poorly on your character and behavior
• Deal with a challenge or traumatic experience without a lesson learned or positive outlook

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Spend time reflecting on and writing out answers to the following questions. After doing this exercise, you should be able to identify a few strong topics for your college essay.

Writing about yourself can be difficult. If you’re struggling to identify your topic, try these two strategies.

Start with your qualities

After identifying your positive qualities or values, brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities.

Start with a story

If you already have some memorable stories in mind that you’d like to write about, think about which qualities and values you can demonstrate with those stories.

Talk it through

To make sure you choose the right topic, ask for advice from trusted friends or family members who know you well. They can help you brainstorm ideas and remember stories, and they can give you feedback on your potential essay topics.

You can also work with a guidance counselor, teacher, or other mentor to discuss which ideas are most promising. If you plan ahead , you can even workshop multiple draft essays to see which topic works best.

If you do choose a common topic, ensure you have the following to craft a unique essay:

• Surprising or unexpected story arcs
• Interesting insight or connections
• An advanced writing style

Here are a few examples of how to craft strong essays from cliché topics.

Here’s a checklist you can use to confirm that your college essay topic is right for you.

College essay topic checklist

My topic is focused on me, not on someone else.

My topic shares something different from the rest of my application.

My topic is specific and original (not many students could write a similar essay).

My topic reflects positively on my character and behavior.

If I chose to write about a traumatic or challenging experience, my essay will focus on how I overcame it or gained insight.

If I chose a common topic, my essay will have a surprising story arc, interesting insight, and/or an advanced writing style.

Good topic!

It looks like your topic is a good choice. It's specific, it avoids clichés, and it reflects positively on you.

There are no foolproof college essay topics —whatever your topic, the key is to write about it effectively. However, a good topic

• Is meaningful, specific, and personal to you
• Focuses on you and your experiences
• Reveals something beyond your test scores, grades, and extracurriculars
• Is creative and original

Yes—admissions officers don’t expect everyone to have a totally unique college essay topic . But you must differentiate your essay from others by having a surprising story arc, an interesting insight, and/or an advanced writing style .

To decide on a good college essay topic , spend time thoughtfully answering brainstorming questions. If you still have trouble identifying topics, try the following two strategies:

• Identify your qualities → Brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities
• Identify memorable stories → Connect your qualities to these stories

You can also ask family, friends, or mentors to help you brainstorm topics, give feedback on your potential essay topics, or recall key stories that showcase your qualities.

Most topics are acceptable for college essays if you can use them to demonstrate personal growth or a lesson learned. However, there are a few difficult topics for college essays that should be avoided. Avoid topics that are:

• Overly personal (e.g. graphic details of illness or injury, romantic or sexual relationships)
• Not personal enough (e.g. broad solutions to world problems, inspiring people or things)
• Too negative (e.g. an in-depth look at your flaws, put-downs of others, criticizing the need for a college essay)
• Too boring (e.g. a resume of your academic achievements and extracurriculars)
• Inappropriate for a college essay (e.g. illegal activities, offensive humor, false accounts of yourself, bragging about privilege)

Here’s a brief list of college essay topics that may be considered cliché:

• Extracurriculars, especially sports
• Role models
• Dealing with a personal tragedy or death in the family
• Struggling with new life situations (immigrant stories, moving homes, parents’ divorce)
• Becoming a better person after community service, traveling, or summer camp
• Overcoming a difficult class
• Using a common object as an extended metaphor

It’s easier to write a standout essay with a unique topic. However, it’s possible to make a common topic compelling with interesting story arcs, uncommon connections, and an advanced writing style.

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

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Where to Begin? 6 Personal Essay Brainstorming Exercises

←8 Do’s and Don’ts for Crafting Your College Essay

Creating the First Draft of Your College Application Essay →

The Common App publishes a list of 7 prompts each year. They ultimately ask for similar types of responses, regardless of slight alterations year-to-year. The Common App prompts provide you with a forum to write about yourself, using whatever anecdote or vehicle you wish in order to communicate something profound and genuine about yourself to adcoms.

If this feat seems daunting or spellbindingly vague to you, you are not alone. For virtually every student applying to college, the moment when you sit down to draft your personal statement is likely the first—and may end up being the only—time in your life when you are pushed to describe your entire identity succinctly and eloquently. So, where to begin?

As with any writing assignment, the best way to approach the personal essay is to brainstorm what it is you want the entire essay to communicate about you to the adcom that will be considering you for admission. Read on for 4 surprising brainstorming exercises that will lead you to an effective personal statement strategy.

1. Consider the four core questions.

When writing your personal statement, there are four questions that your essay should answer:

• “Who am I?”
• “Why am I here?”
• “What is unique about me?”
• “What matters to me?”

These questions are important because they help bring awareness to the kind of person you are and touch on things such as your personality traits, your journey throughout high school, the interests and skills that make you unique, and what’s important to you. Colleges want to understand how you became who you are, and where you’re going (successful alumni reflect well on their school, after all!).

2. Try freeform writing.

To help answer these questions and start brainstorming, freeform writing is a good place to start. Begin by writing down 3-5 aspects of your personality or experiences and spend some time constructing narratives out of these different combinations.

This process of getting some ideas on paper and seeing how they can relate to each other can help you better identify a prompt that works for you. For example, you might note that you enjoy tutoring students in STEM, and are now working with a local school to create a Women in STEM initiative in your school district. You may also have tried previous initiatives that failed. These experiences could be constructed and applied to a number of Common App prompts. You could address a specific identity or interest you have associated with STEM, discuss what you learned from your failed initiatives, explore how you challenged the lack of women in STEM programs in your school district, envision solving for the lack of women involved in the science and mathematics fields, etc.

3. Make a list of opinions you firmly hold and explain them.

This exercise requires you to think about aspects of your identity that you have actively chosen. While exercise #4 asks you to consider what parts of your identity you have struggled to overcome, this exercise asks you to consider what aspects of your identity you are most proud of—those opinions that you hold because you chose to believe in something specific of your own accord.

This is an important brainstorming exercise because it should get you thinking about things you are passionate about. Ultimately, you will want to write your personal statement about something that defines you, gets you excited, and can exhibit your ability to think and speak for yourself. So now, before you start writing, make a list of the things that you care about most, and explain why you feel that way about them.

This list can include everything from your political affiliation to your stance on McDonald’s decision in the past year to serve breakfast for longer. The point of this exercise is that there is no right or wrong way of going about it, no topic that is more worthwhile than any other so long as you are passionate about it.

4. Make a list of your character flaws.

While the ultimate goal of the personal essay is to present yourself in as positive a light as possible to adcoms, the challenge is to do so in a way that is realistic and genuine. To do this, you’ll need to do some serious thinking about what types of character flaws accompany your best traits.

There are two main reasons why we suggest that students not shy away from talking about their own shortcomings as well as their achievements. The first reason is quite simple: a personal statement that paints a picture of its writer as perfect and without flaws will come across as dishonest and unrealistic. Obviously, you want to avoid this at all costs. Second, and even more important, if you are able to write a personal statement that acknowledges your flaws and recognizes that you are imperfect, it will reflect positively on you and vouch for your maturity.

If it feels counterintuitive or scary to dwell on anything other than successes, do not fret: that is the expected reaction to this advice. But if done correctly, acknowledging that you are not perfect can add genuineness to any personal essay. So, how to discuss character flaws? There are several ways to go about this.

One way is to discuss a character flaw that you have always struggled with and worked to improve upon throughout your life. In this scenario, discussing flaws can help introduce a discussion about growth or maturation and give your personal statement a nice narrative arc. Yet another way to discuss your character flaws is to acknowledge how certain struggles or personal shortcomings have shaped your identity, allowing you to go into more detail about the ways in which you were able to better yourself by identifying a flaw in yourself and being willing to fix it.

The thinking here is that students have no difficulty remembering all of the accomplishments, productive experiences, and glowing achievements that they want to include in their personal statements. After all, it is easy to write about these things. It is much harder to force yourself to think about aspects of your identity that rankle, and to think about how these things have shaped you.

5. Reflect on your choices and why you made them.

Another brainstorming exercise that can help you think of a topic is to reflect on what choices you’ve made and why. Once you come up with a list, it will be easier to see what you value and the direction in which you can take your essay.

Think about some of these questions to get the juices flowing:

• Why are they my best friend?
• Under what circumstances did we become friends?
• When did we last fight?
• If I had to spend 10 days doing the same exercise or physical activity, what would I choose? Why?
• Say I had to pick one food, and my three closest friends or family members could only eat that food for one week. What would that food be and why?
• Say I had to start a business selling something, and I would achieve the average level of success (financially, socially, etc) within that business, what would I choose to do?
• What movie would I want to take the place of a character in and which character would I want to play? Why?
• What class or teacher did I like most, and why? What class or teacher did I dislike most, and why?
• If I had to choose between singing, doing standup comedy, or dancing in front of 18,000 people, what would I choose? Why?

6. Make a list of anecdotes, childhood memories, or stories about yourself. Then choose one and make it your “vehicle.”

Finally, you should conclude your brainstorming session by searching for a vehicle: an anecdote that you can use to frame your personal statement.

You can use anecdotes in your personal statement in a number of ways. Some students choose to open with one, others close with one, and still others will use two or three anecdotes in order to add color and rhetorical flair to the points they are trying to make about themselves. The best types of anecdotes are the ones that tell the most about you or give insight into your character.

When we help students write their personal statements, we usually begin by brainstorming a few potential anecdotes to use in your essay. But if you are wondering what the point is of using an anecdote— Why use one at all when I could save words and just talk about myself ?—it’s useful to first understand why telling a story or two makes your personal statement stronger.

Ultimately, you will want your personal statement to communicate something about your character and personality that is unique and appealing to schools. When an adcom reads your personal statement, they are looking to hear about you in general, they are looking to learn something unique or special about you (so they can differentiate you from other applicants), and they are also looking for evidence that you would be a valuable addition to their community. But the fact of the matter is that these are fairly broad and vague directives to write about if you don’t have something specific to focus on.

This is where the anecdotes come in to save the day! They help instigate a conversation about yourself, your personality, your identity, and your character while also giving you something concrete to talk about. This is why we call it a “vehicle”—it can exist in its own right, but it carries with it important information about you as well.

Now that you know what the purpose of this vehicle is, it should be a little easier to brainstorm the anecdote(s) that you choose to frame your personal statement with. If you are not yet sure what to write about in your personal statement, you can start brainstorming anecdotes from your childhood, from favorite family stories to fond memories, from hilarious vacation mishaps to particularly tender moments. Do your parents have favorite stories to tell about you? Write those into your list as well.

Once you have a collection of stories to work with, you may begin to see certain patterns forming. Perhaps all of your favorite stories take place in the same setting—a vacation home that meant a lot to you or in the classroom of your favorite teacher. Maybe, you will realize that all of your fondest memories involve a certain activity or hobby of yours. Or, alternatively, you may notice that one story from your childhood mirrors or foreshadows a like, dislike, or accomplishment that would come to fruition later in your life.

If you already know what you want to say about yourself, you can come at the same exercise from another angle: try to think of several anecdotes that could be potential vehicles for the message about yourself that you want to transmit. If you want to illustrate that you love to learn, try to think pointedly about where that love comes from or what you have done that proves this. In this case, remember that any given anecdote can reveal more than one thing about you.

It is hard to imagine all of the possible personal statements that could come out of this brainstorming session, but it is almost certain that this exercise will help you come up with several concrete points to make about yourself and provide you with a tangible way to say those things.

Final Thoughts

If after doing these six brainstorming exercises, you still don’t feel ready to write your personal statement, fear not! Writing a personal essay is daunting and won’t be done in three steps, or even three days! 

For more guidance, check out these blog posts:

How to Write a Personal Statement That Wows Colleges

How to Come Up With an Idea for a Personal Statement

How to Write the Common App Essays

Mastering the Personal Statement

5 Tips for Editing Your College Essays

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20 Brainstorming Ideas For College Essays

Why? Because I’m working on essays with several seniors right now and, for the most part, it’s a painful process for them. Between homework and assignments for school, activities, and sports, it’s hard to find time to write your essay .

And while it’s hard to sit down and turn that blank piece of paper into something poetic, it’s ten times harder if you don’t even know what you want to write about. Sure, you have the Common App essay prompts to work off of, but which one is going to help you write the essay which will propel your application from good to great?

If this is you and you’re having a tough time just getting some ideas on paper, here are a few prompts to get your creative juices flowing:

• What is your favorite subject and why?
• How do you spend your time outside of school?
• What are your most unique talents?
• What is important to you?
• How has a moment in your life inspired you to be a different person?
• What is a life lesson that you’ve learned (especially if you learned it the hard way)?
• What are your greatest strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?
• What is the most unusual thing you’ve ever done?
• What is the most interesting place you’ve ever visited or travelled to?
• What is an accomplishment or achievement you are most proud of?
• What is an obstacle or challenge you have had to overcome?
• Who is someone in your life you are inspired by and why?
• What jobs have you held and what have you liked and disliked about them?
• How are you different from your friends or classmates?
• What is your relationship like with your family (think immediate and non-immediate family)?
• How would your best friend describe you?
• How would your parents describe you?
• How would your brother or sister (if you have either) describe you?
• If you had a “do-over” in your life, what is something you would do differently and why?

Some of these prompts require you to dig a little deeper than others, but at the end of the day they are all designed to do one thing: get you thinking about yourself. Because that’s what your essay is for; an opportunity to tell admissions counselors about awesome and wonderful you.

If you have questions about writing your college essay or would like some help getting unstuck from writer’s block, use the comment box below or email me directly at [email protected] . I would love to hear from you!

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6 Tips to Make Brainstorming for the College Admissions Essay Enjoyable

Think about where you do your best work. Maybe you love to work at home with the TV blaring or in total silence at the library; maybe you do your best work at night or first thing in the morning. Choose an environment that inspires you so that brainstorming is pleasant and productive!

FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE PROMPTS.

Read over this year’s prompts for the Common Application. Consider them. Then put them aside–forget them!

HUNT FOR MILESTONES.

Go back in time. Start with this year and move backwards. Think about every moment that stood out to you—moments that felt important to you, that defined who you are. Maybe it was the time that you stayed up all night making a Halloween costume using only Pokemon cards and duct tape, or baked a wedding cake for your favorite aunt that exploded in your parents’ oven. Maybe it was the time that you failed to make varsity basketball but worked so hard on the JV team that you were voted MVP. It can be anything as long as it is meaningful to you!

ASK BIG QUESTIONS.

Looking back over the past few years, what moments are you most proud of? What are the biggest challenges that you have faced? What are you most passionate about? What fascinates you? Who or what inspires you? What do you do to relax? Do you shoot hoops with your twin brother, tinker in your dad’s garage, or choreograph hip-hop music? Reflect on all your different sides, and all your collected experiences!

CAPTURE IT.

Write down ALL of your ideas. For some of us, listing every idea works well. For the more visually-oriented, making what is called a bubble map can be helpful. Start by placing a topic in the center of the page and drawing a circle around it. Then, as related words and ideas come to mind, write them, circle them, and connect them to the circles containing related ideas. Lastly, you can try freewriting: set a timer and write down everything that comes to your mind for 20 minutes. Whichever method you choose, don’t hold anything back. Let your ideas flow!

SELECT A WINNER.

After you are finished writing down your ideas, put them away for a day or two. Talk them over with friends and family. Then come back to them, choosing a topic that you are excited to write about–one that tells a story about you that can’t be gleaned from your resume and transcript, that captures who you are on a personal level! Once you have your golden topic, you can go back to the list of prompts for the Common Application and find one that fits your topic. You are now ready to get down to business and write a fantastic college admissions essay (and defeat The Huns , obvi).

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Category: advice , Brainstorming , College Admissions , Essay Tips , Essay Writing , Quick Tips , Tips

Tags: brainstorming , brainstorming tips , college admissions , college admissions essay , college bound , college essay , college essay advice , college essay advising , college essay brainstorming , college essay help , college essay ideas , college essay tips , college prep

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Still commonly known by its post-war name of Lomonosov, the estate at Oranienbaum is the oldest of the Imperial Palaces around St. Petersburg, and also the only one not to be captured by Nazi forces during the Great Patriotic War. Founded by Prince Menshikov, Peter the Great's closest adviser, the Grand Palace is one of the most opulent examples of Petrine architecture to have survived to the present, although until very recently the palace itself has been greatly neglected. After Menshikov's death, Oranienbaum passed to the state, and was used as a hospice until, in 1743, it was presented by Empress Elizabeth to her nephew, the future Peter III. Peter made Oranienbaum his official summer residence and transformed one corner of the park, ordering the construction of a "Joke" Castle and a small citadel manned by his Holstein guards. This peculiar ensemble, called Petershtadt, was mostly demolished during Pavel's reign. Antonio Rinaldi, the Italian-born architect who also designed the Grand Palace at Gatchina and the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg, was commissioned by Peter in 1758 to build a modest stone palace next to the fortress, and this has survived.

After Peter was deposed, Rinaldi was commissioned by Catherine the Great to build the Chinese Palace, in the Upper Park, as her official country residence. However, Catherine spent little time at Oranienbaum, which she had grown to hate during her marriage to Peter, and by the end of the 18 th century the estate had been turned into a Naval Cadet College. The palace became an Imperial residence again in the reign of Alexander I, and retained that status until the Revolution, when it was immediately opened as a museum. Although never captured by the Germans, Oranienbaum was bombarded during the war and, while the Grand Menshikov Palace survived intact, its restoration was given much lower priority than the more famous estates at Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo. Today, the small but elegant park has been almost completely restored, while the full restoration of the palaces has finally gained momentum over the last decade.

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