The essay can take you a few months to work through several drafts before you are ready to submit it with your Common Application. You must give yourself a few months to put your thoughts to paper and then improve on them as you reflect on what message you want to convey to the college in your essay.

The essay is not easy to write given that you have just 650 words in which to share who you are and show that you possess those valuable qualities that the colleges want.

When is a good time to start

The summer between your junior and senior year is the best time to get started on a framework for your essay. You are about 5 months away from submission of your Early Decision or Early Action application and 6 months away from the submission of your Regular Decision application. You have some free time during the summer to reflect on who you are and how you want to portray yourself to the colleges.

Once senior year gets started in late August or early September, you will be overwhelmed by demands from academic work and your activities in addition to all the other preparation to get yourself ready to submit your Common Application.

So, get started on your essay early, you will be glad that you did.

What are the first steps

Your first step is to identify the theme of your Common Application based on your academic performance, activities and achievements.

Read How to set the framework for your essay

You should then look for the dimension about yourself, consistent with your application theme, that is not covered somewhere else in your application. By definition, this dimension will be found in your personal experiences and anecdotes. You should look for those dimensions that tie together with the themes from your activities and achievements.

List out these personal experiences and anecdotes and the impact they had on you. Which ones best reflect qualities in you that the colleges want?

Take your time with this process, it can take you one to two weeks to flesh out your ideas.

Write your first draft

Once you identify the personal experiences and anecdotes whose impact on you best reflect the qualities the colleges want, you can start your first draft by weaving your story around these experiences.

Depending on how comfortable you are with writing and how good your writing skills are, this first draft could take you just a few hours to write, or it could take you up to a week to complete.

Review, reflect and revise

The first draft will not be your last. Read the draft through carefully and make sure that:

• the impacts you describe from your personal experiences are not trite or cliched. If they are, then adjust and revise them.

• the essay is about you, and should not stray into the mechanics of a chess game you played, or provide too much detail into the trip you took with your grandparents last summer

• you have used your authentic voice in the essay and it reflects who you are as a person

• the theme is consistent, and reflects that you have the qualities the colleges want

Check out Where to read successful essays for the Common Application?

Produce your next drafts for outside review

Complete your second or third draft of the essay before the end of summer and check it against the criteria mentioned above.

You should be ready to share the draft essay with someone outside your family by the end of summer. It is recommended that you ask your school’s college counselor to read it, or you can engage a professional essay reader to provide you with feedback.

Final copy

Once senior year starts, you should be focused on finessing the message of your essay before final submission.

If you dedicated time in the summer to writing and reviewing several drafts of your essay, the process to finesse your message before you submit it with your Common Application, should not take more than 10 to 15 hours of your time.

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