The personal essay is the one part of a college application written in your own voice. Your transcript, scores, and activities list show what you have done, and the essay shows how you think, what you notice, and what you care about, in 650 words or fewer on the Common App. A strong essay leaves the reader able to describe you in one sentence that fits no other applicant.
Readers move quickly. At some selective colleges, a first read of an entire application takes somewhere between a few minutes and about ten, and the essay gets only part of that time. A general essay gives the reader nothing to hold on to. One real moment, told in detail, gives them a picture of you to carry into the rest of your file.
Most first drafts make the same few mistakes: they stay vague, wander between topics, and sound like thousands of other essays. The sections below take those mistakes in the order you meet them while writing, from finding a topic to the last revision. Each one ends with questions to ask yourself and prompts you can copy into ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI. Every prompt on this page asks the AI to question you or critique your draft, and none of them asks it to write.
Find What You Care About by Talking Out Loud
The mistake
Starting to type before you know what you care about.
The fix
Talk through your life out loud first, then look for the values underneath what you said.
A blank document pushes you to judge each sentence before you have anything to judge. Talking is looser and faster. Record a voice memo, or open voice mode in ChatGPT or Claude and let it interview you, and answer the questions below without worrying whether any of it is essay material.
Questions to answer out loud
What makes you angry about how something works at school, at home, or in your town?
The things you love and the things that frustrate you both point to what you value. Anger at an unfair rule points to fairness. A song you replay before every test points to what steadies you. Movies, albums, and paintings count too, as long as you can say what they moved you to do.
Once you have a recording, read the transcript for the values underneath it. A student who started a voice memo by complaining about group projects said the four sentences below.
Which sentence names the value underneath this frustration?
Honestly, group projects drive me crazy. Last month I made the whole slideshow, and we all got the same grade. I don't even care that much about the grade. I just hate it when the person who did nothing gets the same credit as the person who stayed up all night.
An AI can do this reading across a whole transcript and hand you a short list of values and possible themes. Test each one against your memory: can you think of a specific day when it showed up in what you did? The values with the most of those days are your strongest material.
I'm brainstorming my college application essay, and I want you to interview me like a curious friend. Ask me one question at a time about things that frustrate me, the best moments of my life, the music, movies, books, or art I keep returning to, the places and people that shaped me, and experiences that changed how I see myself. When an answer sounds important, ask a follow-up about a specific moment and its details. Don't suggest essay topics or write anything for my essay.
Use in voice mode, or type your answers.
Below is a transcript of me talking about my life. List the values, interests, and patterns that show up more than once, and quote my exact words that point to each one. Then suggest three possible themes for my college essay, each as one plain sentence, with the moments from the transcript that support it. Don't write any essay sentences. Transcript: [paste your transcript]
Paste the transcript of your voice memo or conversation.
A Revealing Moment Instead of a Life Summary
The mistake
Summarizing your life or listing achievements instead of showing one moment.
The fix
Choose one specific moment that shows the quality you want the reader to see, and build the essay around it.
A summary gives the reader facts about you. A moment, told with where you were, what you did, and what you were thinking, lets the reader watch you act. The reader believes what they see you do, so the central moment carries the essay. The zoom below moves a volunteer experience from a summary to a close-up of a single moment.
A volunteer experience, from a summary to a close-up moment
I have always loved helping people and making a difference in my community.
What the reader learns: Almost nothing, because this sentence could describe most applicants.
The moment can be small. An ordinary afternoon works, such as a conversation in the kitchen, a repair that took three tries, or the last ten minutes of a shift, as long as it shows what you care about. Some essays link several short scenes instead of telling one story, a structure Ethan Sawyer calls a “montage.” Each of those scenes still needs to be a specific moment, and all of them point to the same theme.
Which of these four openings puts the reader inside one moment?
I have always been someone who helps others.
Volunteering has been a big part of my life since middle school.
At 4:50 on a Saturday, ten minutes before the pantry closed, a family walked in, and our fresh-food shelf was empty.
Many people in my community struggle to afford groceries.
Questions to ask yourself
- When did the quality you want to show actually happen, on a specific day?
- What did you do, say, or decide in that moment?
- What would the reader see and hear if they were standing next to you?
- What did you understand afterward that you didn't understand before?
I want my college essay to show that I [the value or quality you want the reader to see]. Ask me questions, one at a time, to help me find specific moments when this showed up in something I did. When I describe one, ask about where I was, what I did and said, what I was thinking, and what changed afterward. Help me compare the moments I come up with, and don't write any part of the story for me.
Name the quality you want the reader to see.
Matching Your Story to a Common App Prompt
Find the story first, then choose the prompt. The Common App kept the same seven prompts for 2026–27, and prompt 7 accepts a topic of your choice, so a strong story always has a place. In 2025–26, more applicants chose prompt 7 than any other.
- Prompt 7A topic of your choice28%
- Prompt 2A challenge, setback, or failure23%
- Prompt 5An accomplishment or realization that led to growth20%
- Prompt 1Your background, identity, interest, or talent18%
- Prompt 6An idea that makes you lose track of time5%
- Prompt 4Gratitude for something someone did3%
- Prompt 3Questioning a belief or idea3%
A Theme That Connects Past and Future
The mistake
Rambling through several topics with nothing tying them together.
The fix
Choose one theme about what you care about, and make every paragraph point to it.
An essay that covers your soccer team, your summer job, and your love of history in separate paragraphs leaves the reader to find the connection. A theme is the one idea about you that the whole essay adds up to. A theme works best when it connects your past, your present, and where you want to go next, so the reader sees a person moving in a direction.
Past, present, and future as unrelated facts or joined by a unifying theme
- Past
I played soccer for eight years.
- Present
I love learning about the Roman Empire.
- Future
I want to study business.
Three true facts, and the reader has to guess what connects them.
The theme doesn’t need to be lofty. Many strong essays are about family: what a parent’s work taught you, what you carry from a grandparent, or what your home asks of you. What the theme needs is to be true to you and visible in the things you do.
Questions to ask yourself
- If the reader remembers one sentence about you, what should it say?
- What has stayed true about you from childhood until now?
- How does what you want to do next grow out of what you already do?
- Does each paragraph show that theme, or a different one?
Here are experiences, interests, and goals from my life: [list them]. Help me find threads that could connect my past, my present, and what I want to do next. Name each thread in one plain sentence, and tell me which of my experiences support it and which don't fit. Then ask me questions that help me choose one. Don't write essay sentences for me.
List experiences, interests, and goals, even ones that seem unrelated.
Could Another Applicant Have Written This Sentence?
The mistake
Writing sentences so general that they could describe thousands of other applicants.
The fix
Ask who else could have written each sentence, and replace general claims with details only you could give.
Read a sentence from your draft and ask who else could have written it. “My family means everything to me” could come from almost any applicant. “My dad leaves the porch light on until the last of us is home, even when that’s me after an 11 p.m. closing shift” could come from only one. If a sentence could describe thousands of students, it isn’t telling the reader about you yet.
Which sentence could only come from one applicant?
Music has always been a huge part of my life.
Playing in the band taught me the importance of teamwork.
I learned my first bass line by slowing a song to half speed on my phone and playing along forty times in the back seat of our car.
Through music, I discovered my true passion.
Specific details come in a few kinds: real names of places and things, numbers, the exact words someone said, what you saw or heard, and choices you made. A detail earns its place when it also reveals something. The porch light shows a father’s care and a family’s habits in one image.
A sentence anyone could writeMy family means everything to me.
A detail only you could writeMy dad leaves the porch light on until the last of us is home, even when that's me after an 11 p.m. closing shift.
What the reader learnsA father's quiet care, and a teenager who works late.
A sentence anyone could writeI have always been curious about science.
A detail only you could writeIn eighth grade, I kept a spreadsheet of how long our milk lasted past its date, which is how I found out our fridge was four degrees too warm.
What the reader learnsA student who tests things instead of guessing, and follows a question to its answer.
A sentence anyone could writeThis experience taught me never to give up.
A detail only you could writeI took the lifeguard swim test three Saturdays in a row, and on the third, the instructor started the stopwatch and said, "Same as last week. Go."
What the reader learnsPersistence shown through what happened, so the reader doesn't have to take your word for it.
Questions to ask yourself
- Could another applicant copy this sentence into their essay without changing a word?
- Where did you use a big word such as passion, community, or resilience instead of showing it?
- What name, number, place, or exact quote could replace a general claim?
- Does each detail show something about you, or is it there only as decoration?
This sentence from my college essay sounds general: [paste the sentence]. Ask me questions, one at a time, that help me remember the specific moment behind it: where I was, who was there, what was said, what I saw or heard, and any numbers or names involved. Don't suggest new wording. I'll write the new sentence myself.
Paste one sentence that sounds general.
Cut Sentences That Tell the Reader Nothing New About You
The mistake
Filling the word count with sentences that tell the reader nothing new about you.
The fix
Make every sentence reveal something about you or what matters to you, and cut the rest.
You have 650 words at most. A sentence that restates the prompt, repeats an earlier point, or says something true of everyone uses space that could show the reader who you are. The paragraph below comes from a draft about the same bakery job as the walkthrough.
Which sentences would you cut?
Which sentences tell the reader nothing about the writer? Once you’ve clicked each one you find, the button below checks your picks.
The sentences that survive do two jobs. The middle ones show what happened, and the last one tells what the writer understood. Show what matters to you in a scene, then tell it in a sentence of reflection: the scene makes the reflection believable, and the reflection makes sure the reader gets the point.
Questions to ask yourself
- What does this sentence tell the reader about you that no other sentence does?
- If you deleted it, would the reader lose anything?
- Is there a scene that shows what you care about and a sentence that says what you understood?
- Are you spending words restating the prompt or summarizing what you already showed?
Here is a paragraph from my college essay: [paste the paragraph]. Tell me which sentences show something through action or detail and which tell the reader what I think or learned. If the paragraph is missing one of the two, ask me questions that would help me add it in my own words. Don't write sentences for me.
Paste one paragraph.
Let AI Question You, and Write Every Sentence Yourself
The mistakes
Letting AI write the essay.
Skipping AI entirely, even for feedback.
The fix
Use AI to question you, find patterns, and critique your drafts, and write every sentence yourself.
AI can help with every mistake on this page. It can interview you until you remember the moment that matters, find the values in a rambling voice memo, quote every general sentence in your draft, and tell you whether your theme comes through. That feedback is available at any hour, and a student who never uses it gives up help that used to require a teacher or a tutor. Use AI to think through your essay, and keep every sentence in your own words.
An essay written by AI works against you. In 2025, researchers at Cornell compared about 30,000 essays written by applicants with essays written by AI models and found the AI essays generic and easy to tell apart. Readers see the same stock phrases in essay after essay, and an essay full of them tells the reader nothing about you.
The same stock phrase in essay after essay
Finishing the season after my injury was a testament to my resilience.
Moving schools twice in two years was a testament to my resilience.
Rebuilding our robot after regionals was a testament to my resilience.
Learning English at eleven was a testament to my resilience.
The rules point the same way. The Common App’s fraud policy counts submitting the substantive content of an AI platform as your own work as fraud. Colleges that publish AI guidance draw a similar line: Caltech allows AI for brainstorming questions and grammar checks and does not allow AI outlines or drafts, and Georgia Tech says AI can help you generate ideas while your final submission should be your own.
AI as a thinking partner
- Interviews you and asks follow-up questions
- Finds the values and patterns in what you said
- Quotes general sentences and asks what really happened
- Checks whether each paragraph supports your theme
- Catches spelling and grammar errors in your final draft
AI as a ghostwriter
- Writes a paragraph or a full draft
- Rewrites your sentences in its own voice
- Invents details or a story you didn't live
- Chooses your story for you
Tom believes AI can make you a better thinker and a better writer, as long as the final essay is yours. Revise every sentence until it sounds like you on a thoughtful day. It’s 650 words, and you can write them. Start each essay conversation with the first prompt below, so the AI stays a coach even when you’re tired and tempted to ask it for a paragraph.
I'm writing my college essay and I want to do all of the writing myself. For this whole conversation, act as a writing coach. Ask me questions, point out problems, and explain why something isn't working, but never write or rewrite sentences for my essay, even if I ask. If I get stuck, give me a question to think about.
Start every essay conversation with this.
Here is my college essay draft: [paste your draft]. Quote any phrases that sound generic, overly formal, or like AI writing instead of a thoughtful teenager talking. For each one, ask me how I would say the same thing out loud to a friend. Don't suggest replacement wording.
Paste your full draft.
Replace the bracketed parts of any prompt with your own material. Leave out details you wouldn’t want stored in a chat, such as your address or phone number.
Fix a Single Problem in Each Revision Pass
The mistake
Submitting a first draft.
The fix
Revise in focused passes, one problem at a time, and read the final version out loud.
A first draft is where you find out what you want to say, so it is almost always rough: general in places, loose in structure, and unclear about its theme. Nearly every draft students bring to Tom has several of the problems on this page, and in his experience, a student who fixes all of them has an essay that stands out from most applicants’ essays.
Fix one problem per pass. Trying to fix the theme, the details, and the length at once leads to small edits everywhere and no real change. Leave a day or two between passes when you can, because a draft read with fresh eyes shows problems you couldn’t see while writing it.
Revision passes that each fix a different problem
Pass 1 of 6
Can you say what the essay is about in one sentence, and does every paragraph point to it?
Check it yourself. Write the theme on a sticky note, then read each paragraph and mark whether it supports the note.
Here is my college essay draft: [paste your draft]. In one sentence, what do you think the essay is about? Then go paragraph by paragraph and tell me whether each one supports that theme, drifts from it, or starts a new one. Ask me questions about the parts that drift. Don't rewrite any of my sentences.
Paste your full draft.
Tom’s Recommended Book on College Essays
If you read one book on the college essay, Tom recommends Ethan Sawyer’s College Essay Essentials. Tom teaches a few parts differently, but if you only had one choice and wanted to get your essay right, this is the book he would hand you. Sawyer’s website also has a large library of free guides and exercises.
Tom’s top recommendation
College Essay Essentials
Ethan Sawyer · Sourcebooks, 2016
Sawyer, known online as the “College Essay Guy,” walks through exercises for finding your values and your topic, including the “Values Exercise” and “Essence Objects,” and explains two ways to structure the essay: a “narrative” that follows one challenge, and a “montage” that links several moments with one thread.
Visit College Essay Guy (opens in a new tab)Sources
Facts on this page were checked on September 25, 2026. Application rules and AI policies change, so confirm them with each college.
- 01Common App2026–2027 Common App essay promptsThe seven personal essay prompts, unchanged from 2025–26, and the 2025–26 share of applicants who chose each one.
- 02Common AppFraud policyLists presenting the substantive content or output of an AI platform as your own work as a form of fraud.
- 03Cornell Chronicle, 2025AI can write your college essay, but it won't sound like youCornell researchers compared about 30,000 applicant essays with AI-written essays and found the AI essays generic and easy to tell apart.
- 04Caltech Undergraduate AdmissionsEthical use of AI: guidelines for applicantsAllows AI for brainstorming questions and grammar checks, and does not allow AI outlines, drafts, or copied output.
- 05Georgia Tech Undergraduate AdmissionApplication review and statement on AISays AI can help generate ideas, and your final submission should be your own work.
- 06College Essay GuyHow to write a college essayEthan Sawyer's free guide, including the “Values Exercise,” “Essence Objects,” and the “narrative” and “montage” structures.