Rising Seniors: Applying to College & Essay Writing

Download our free timeline and use the links on this page beginning in January of your junior year.

Common App: 2024-25 Essay Prompts
CTK Blog: Writing the College Essay
NYTimes: October 2022 Winning Essays
College Essay Guy:12 Essay Examples
Many schools require additional essays, either within the application or in a writing supplement post submission. Some schools have numerous prompts– Stanford has eight– and others have a more typical set of two or three.
You may also find yourself writing essays for special circumstances: merit scholarships at individual colleges, honors college applications, and outside scholarships.
Specifically, the University of California does not use the Common App or Coalition App. It has its own application, which requires four essays (drawn from eight prompts) of 350 words each.
CTK Pro Tip: Hang onto all the ideas and stories you did not use for your Common App essay so you can draw on them for the additional essays.
Colleges often change their supplemental prompts from year to year, so we advise waiting until after schools post their updated applications for the annual cycle on August 1 before beginning your writing.
You can plan ahead by seeing what the previous year’s prompts were, and The College Essay Guy is an excellent source.