No natter how you do it, writing college application essays is going to take time and careful attention.
That said, there are more and less efficient ways of approaching the overall process that will help eliminate redundancy and help you naturally refine the way you present yourself.
Assuming that you’re applying to at least some schools that use the Common Application or Coalition Application, we suggest working in approximately the following order.
1. Personal Statement
This forces you to figure out the big stuff first about what your application will look like overall.
What major(s) and minor(s) are you applying for? How well is your experience in those areas reflected in your transcripts and extracurriculars? What is your “hook” or “angle”?
Picking a topic for your personal statement present a host of its own challenges that go beyond the scope of this post, but knowing the general direction – writing about your interest in your field of study or something else – is a critical first juncture.
Once you’ve picked a topic for the personal statement and given the essay some shape, you’ll have a better idea of what areas remain to be covered in other essays.
2. Activities Descriptions/Resume
A lot of students save these for later in the process, but it can save you a lot of time to write these up front.
This approach has a couple of benefits. One is that you get descriptions down for key activities, and you can use bits or aspects of these descriptions in later essays. Also, knowing what your Activities page looks like will give you a stronger sense of what schools will be seeing when they see your application, so you know which areas to emphasize or strengthen in the rest of your essays.
3. University of California PIQs
If you’re not applying to any UC’s, you can of course go ahead and skip this step!
Some students actually like to start by writing UC essays before the Common/Coalition App personal statement to get started on a few different ideas. I think this makes sense if you’re truly stuck on what to write about for your personal statement, but if you’re really that stuck, you might have a hard time getting started on these too.
In any case, if you’ve finished your personal statement, you almost certainly have one of the UC Personal Insight Questions done already. Just shorten it from 650-350 words. Once in a while, a student might write four entirely new essays for these, but that’s not really necessary.
In any case, these will help you get versions of other essays types down too so that you can adapt them as you write for other schools.
By the way, I always suggest being sure to respond to prompt #6 and at least one of prompts #2 and #3 on the UC application. It’s important to be direct and specific about your academic interests in 6, then balance that a bit in 2 or 3 with more personal information.
The great part about getting UC’s done early is that they have a relatively early deadline, and once you finish these, you’re completely done.
4. Why Major
It’s best to write this after the personal statement because you’ll have a feel for what type of first impression you made already. If you wrote UC PIQ #6, you already have a template for this one done too!
Write this before the “Why Us” essays because there can be some overlap between them, and you’ll want to be able to use small chunks of this type of essay as an introduction to the Why Us essays later.
5. Why Us
These are some of the toughest essays out there, but once you get a template down, they become much easier.
It’s helpful to work on these later in the process because you have a much clearer picture of what else you’re already saying in the rest of the application.
6. Any Other Essays
Many schools have unique essay prompts beyond the classics above. They tend to be more specific questions than the more open-ended essays we’ve gone trough up to this point.
This can mean that it will be easier to pick a topic or angle in some cases, but it can also mean that there’s no obvious path forward with how to approach them. Likewise, for the more open ended prompts (University of Chicago comes to mind), you’ll have to dig a bit to find a good way into the essay.
As such, you want to be at the top of your game when writing these. Once you’ve got a few essays of other types under your belt, diving into a tougher topic will be much more approachable.
Plus, as before, you’ll know what ground you already trod in earlier essays.