Start Working on Common App Personal Statement

Photo by Kaitlyn Blake

The Common App Personal Statement

The time has come! Our juniors are starting to work on their Common App personal statements, and the ‘25-’26 college application cycle has begun.

First things first: before getting to work on this, we want to make sure that students prioritize their AP and IB exams, SAT/ACT, and finals during these last few months of school. Most of our students don’t start meeting regularly about college applications until June, so if you haven’t started yet, don’t worry: you’re not behind! One thing at a time.

Here’s how we start brainstorming for the personal statement:

1. Put all seven personal statement prompts on a Google Doc

2. Read through every single prompt slowly and out loud

3. Choose the three prompts that the student likes best

4. Put down 2-3 ideas for each of those prompts (6-9 ideas total)

5. Choose three of those ideas and write at least one paragraph for each of them

These are the steps we use to “break the seal” on this process, and we’ve designed it this way for a reason. Most students think they have to have one perfect idea and go for it, but that’s not the long game: there are dozens of supplemental essays in the future, and we need ideas for those as well! We love to say “nothing is ever wasted” because almost every idea a student comes up with works its way into a supplemental essay somehow. By brainstorming many ideas right off the bat, we take the pressure off of students to find a “perfect idea” and give them room to play around with what their most meaningful life experiences have been thus far.

Margaret Spillane, an English professor at Yale, loved to tell us in class that great ideas can be found within stupid ideas. Here are some of the “stupid ideas” that have become beautiful essays that got our students into their dream schools, including Ivy Leagues:

• It’s embarrassing to play guitar badly

• Raw cookie dough is better than baked cookies

• I got sick on a backpacking trip

• How to make proper chai

• I like surfing

• I hate the boys in my sailing club

• Sea urchins are my favorite sea animal

Stupid ideas? Maybe on the surface. But the details of a student’s life help show admissions officers who they truly are and what they’ve been through. Never underestimate the power of a stupid idea to make an elegant and sophisticated point.