A List of College Essay
Prompts
that have been used by various universities in the past. While they may not
be the exact question that the college of your choice may ask you, many of
them can be used to respond to the more generic, "Tell us something
about yourself that we don't already know."
Prompts marked with an asterisk (*) are from the current application for
next fall. [This is fairly old, but they’re still good topics.]
1. *Select a creative work: a novel, a film, a poem, a musical piece, a
painting or other work of art that has influenced the way you view the world
and the way you view yourself. Discuss the work and its effect on you.
(University of Virginia/William and Mary/NYU)
2. What book, poem, piece of music, or artwork has influenced you? Write
down your thoughts and feelings about this work and write a dialogue in which
the work responds to you.
3. *Tell us about a situation where you have not been successful and what
you have learned from that experience (William and Mary)
4. Tell us about the biggest
mistake you've ever made, or heard of. (University of Virginia)
5. Describe a risk that you have taken and discuss its impact on your life.
(Kalamazoo College)
6. *Once you have completed your education, would you return to your
hometown to begin your adult life? Why or why not? (William and Mary)
7. Tell us about the neighborhood that you grew up in and how it helped
shape you into the kind of person you are today. (Yale and the University of
Chicago)
8. *Tell us what you think about a current scientific or social
controversy. (William and Mary)
9. *What can you contribute to a multi-cultural world? (William and
Mary)
10. *Identity and culture are clearly intertwined. How has your experience
of culture influenced the development of your own personal identity?
(NYU)
11. *Of all the activities you listed above, which one has proved to be the
best, or the worst, use of your time, and why? Use one specific example to
illustrate how this activity has, or has not, been worthwhile. (University of
Virginia)
12. *Defend your least conventional belief. (University of Virginia)
13. If you were to protest something, for or against, what would it be
and
why?
14. *Are you honorable? How do you know? (University of Virginia)
15. Relate a personal experience that caused you to discern or refine
a
value that you hold. (University of Virginia)
16. Relate an incident in your life in which honesty or character (or
both) were at issue. (University of Virginia)
17. * Describe a situation in which your values or beliefs were
challenged. How did you react? (NYU)
18. * As a prospective 21st century college graduate, you will enter
a
workforce and live in a society with an increasingly global perspective.
How will your current knowledge of international issues and cultures
influence your undergraduate study? (NYU)
19. *If you could invent something, what would it be, and why?
(University
of Virginia)
20. What invention would the world be better off without, and why?
(Kalamazoo College)
21. If you were to write a book, on what theme or subject matter would
it
be based, and why? (Stanford)
22. *What is your favorite word, and why? (University of Virginia)
23. *What effect has any voluntary or independent research, reading
or
study, work in the arts, science project, etc., had on your
intellectual
and personal goals in recent years? Discuss what influence this
involvement has had on your academic goals. (Northwestern)
24. *History has recorded the American Revolution, the Industrial
Revolution, and the Sexual Revolution. Today we are witnessing a
revolution in the way we receive information. What do you think will
be
the next great revolution, and what will be its impact on you and
your
society? (Northwestern)
25. *George Washington said, "Associate with men of good quality, if
you
esteem your own reputation; it is better to be alone than in bad
company." About which of your friends do you and your parents
disagree?
Why do you feel that the continued company of this friend is a good
thing?
(Northwestern)
26. *Imagine you have written a short story, film, or play about your
last
four years. Briefly describe the moment or scene that you think your
audience will most remember after they have finished this
autobiographical
piece. What will they learn about you from that moment?
(Northwestern)
27. *Read Annie Dillard's An American Childhood. Choose one of her
observations or ideas and write a creative, reflective or provocative
essay. (Notre Dame)
28. *Read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham
Jail."
Drawing upon personal experience, write a creative, reflective or
provocative essay. (Notre Dame)
29. *Imagine that you are a "hero" or "heroine" for one
day during any
time period and under any circumstances. Write a creative essay
describing
your experience. (Notre Dame)
30. What is the best advice you ever received? Why? And did you follow
it?
(University of Pennsylvania)
31. If you were to look back on your high school years, what advice
would
you give to someone beginning their high school career? (Simmons)
32. If we could only admit one more student to ________ University,
why
should it be you? (University of Pittsburgh)
33. It has been said [by Andy Warhol] that in the future everyone will
be
famous for fifteen minutes. Describe your fifteen minutes. (New York
University)
34. * You are about to write your future college roommate a letter.
Please provide the roommate with a personal story that will give
him/her
some insight into your personality. (St. Mary's College, MD)
35. You've just written a 300-page autobiography. Send us page 217.
(University of Pennsylvania)
36. What single adjective do you think would be most frequently used
to
describe you by those who know you best? Briefly explain. (Stanford)
37. If you were to describe yourself by a quotation, what would the
quote
be? Explain your answer. (Dartmouth)
38. Create a metaphor for yourself using something you would find in your
kitchen or your garage. List as many similarities or relationships
between yourself and this object as you can think of, then elaborate
on
this comparison in an essay. Why is this object a good representation
of
you? (adapted from U. of Chicago)
39. Describe an intellectual experience of the past two years that
has
given you great satisfaction. (Amherst)
40. Describe your greatest academic achievement or a significant event
in
your life that lead to your achievement.
41. Do you believe that your academic record accurately reflects your
abilities? Explain.
42. What confuses you most in life, and why? (University of Virginia)
43. What have you undertaken or done on your own in the last year or
two
that has nothing to do with academic work? (Northwestern)
44. If money and family obligations left you entirely free, how and
where
would you spend the summer before college?
45. If you were given the opportunity to spend one year in service on
behalf of others, which area would you choose? Explain what you would
do
and why.
46. Imagine that you have the opportunity to travel back through time.
At
what point in history would you like to stop and why? (Swarthmore)
47. What do you think has been the most important social or political
movement of the twentieth century? Do you share a personal identification
with this cause? (Trinity College, CT)
48. If you could be a fly on the wall to observe any situation--historical,
personal, or otherwise--describe what you would choose to observe and why.
What would you hope to learn and how would it benefit you? (University of
Pittsburgh)
49. If you could spend a year with any real or fictional person in the
past, present, or future, whom would you choose? Why? (Kalamazoo
College}
50. If you could meet any famous person, living or dead, who would It be?
Write a dialogue between you and that person.
51. If you could become another person, real or fictional, for one day, who
would you become and why?
52. If you had the power to change three things in your community or in the
world, what would you change and why? (Middle East Technical University in
Turkey)
53. * If you could change the course of a singular event in history, what
event would you affect, and why? In addition, please provide insight on how
you would implement your decision. (St. Mary's College, MD)
54. * Please write a personal journal entry as if the date were Sept. 20,
2030. (St. Mary's College, MD.)
55. If you had the gift of telepathy, the ability to read other people's
minds, would you use this gift or not? Explain. (Middle East Technical
University)
56. Tell us about one of the best conversations you've had.
(Stanford)
57. If you were to develop a Mt. Rushmore representing the 20th century,
whose faces would you select and why? (William and Mary)
58. Recent developments in technology have revolutionized the way we gather
information, communicate with one another, and even express ourselves as
individuals. If there is a computer in your life, tell us how you use it. If
there is not a computer in your life, tell us how you
would. (William and Mary)
59. Select a technological innovation of this century and discuss its
effects on your family, local community or nation. (Notre Dame)
60. Of all the things you hope or expect to gain from your college
experience, which two or three would you place at the top of your list?
Explain what you want to gain and why these experiences are most important to
you.
61. Brainstorm for significant "first" experiences in your life.
Choose one of these firsts to describe and explain its significance to
you.
62. Make a list of "most" experiences in your life (ex: most
proud, most embarrassed, most shocked, etc.) Choose one of these experiences
to describe and explain its significance to you.
63. Look through old family photos and pull out a few that remind you of
important times or significant moments. (Remember that the impact of a moment
is what makes it significant. A hike through the woods can sometimes be more
significant than a birthday.) Choose one of these "Kodak Moment" to
describe and explain its significance to you. Speak about the photograph and
your feelings about what you see in it.
64. * Using a piece of wire, a car window sticker, an egg carton, and any
inexpensive hardware store item, create something that would solve a problem.
Tell us about your creation, but don't worry: we won't require proof that it
works. (Johns Hopkins)
65. * Elvis is alive! Okay, maybe not, but we have been persuaded that
recent Elvis sightings in highway rest areas, grocery stores and laundromats
are part of a wider conspiracy involving five of the following: the metric
system, the Mall of America, the crash of the Hindenberg, Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle, lint, J.D. Salinger, and wax fruit. Construct your own
theory of how and why five of these items are related. (University of
Chicago)
