Top 7 Essay Topics for College Students

Crafting a college application essay can pose some challenges. You should prove that you have a sunny personality and stand out among other applicants in just two pages. The secret ingredient of successful personal essay writing is a good topic. If you are passionate about what you are writing and you are willing to present yourself as strikingly as possible, it must be well illustrated in your essay, which in its turn will help you to make a favorable impression on readers.

Accordingly, how can you come up with a perfect essay topic? The best way is to tell about the event or a period of life, which is vividly suggestive of your personality.

Top 7 Creative College Essay Topics Prompts

• Prompt #1: Tell your story.
  Answer this prompt by telling about your hobby, asset of your personality, or life event that had a profound effect on you. What admissions officers value is the feeling of being connected to you and your honesty. Your passion for superheroes, family history, or other eye-catching facts about your life is perfectly okay if they testify to you as a person. Do not resort to enumerating your achievements at high school, but opt for something that the admissions officers will not find out while reading the rest of your application.
• Prompt #2: Learning from overcoming hassles.
  Your main task is to present yourself in the best light. Thus, simply stating the time when you struggled may not suffice. Surmounting challenges and hardships are indicative of your perseverance, strong will, and audacity. For this reason, writing about the obstacles, which you overcame, may help you to score some points with commission officers. Mind that simple telling about your experience of dealing with obstacles is not enough. You should display the lessons that you drew from this experience and how it changed your life.
• Prompt #3: Challenging a belief.
  This prompt may be useful if you have relevant experience of dealing with a situation when your preconceived view was challenged.
• Prompt #4: Solving a problem.
  This type of college essay idea helps admissions officers to understand how you think in perplexing situations. Present a situation or dilemma and show how it can be solved. The admissions committee wants to see how you think under such hard circumstances and your ability to wrestle with a formidable situation. Share your experience of dealing with this situation and how you took it in stride. Remember that you need to explain the importance of this problem to you.
• Prompt #5: Personal growth.
  When dealing with such college essay ideas, describe the event or achievement that contributed to who you are now. Additionally, explain what lessons you derived and the impact of this experience on your personal life. Colleges want to see a mature student who is able to reflect on personal experience. Thus, you need to highlight your transformations and personal growth.
• Prompt #6: What interests you?
  This prompt may trigger your imagination by allowing you to write about something you feel strongly about. Colleges want to see curious students who take great interest in the world around them. In your college application essay, you need to share your interests and explain how you pursue them.
• Prompt #7: Topic of your choice.
  This question may come especially handy if you have a good personal essay from the English class or were strongly affected by a question from another college application. You can even come up with your own question. Whatever topic you opt for, the main ingredients remain the same: 1) Demonstrate to the admissions committee your skills and aptitudes apart from grades and test scores 2) Immerse yourself into a topic by asking yourself how and why.

More Good College Essay Topics

Some schools may ask you to send supplemental essays. Here are some application essay suggestions and tips on how to deal with them:

• Describe a person you are passionate about.
  Try to avoid elaborating on such figures as Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln. The admissions officers do not need to be persuaded that these people are impactful figures. Switch focus to yourself: Tell about someone who has inspired you to change your behavior or your worldview, and explain how this person influenced you.
• What is your motivation to attend this school?
  Be honest and specific while answering this question. Do not resort to trite phrases like “to obtain first-class education” or “to acquire career skills,” and use details that testify to your interests: “I’m an up and coming doctor and your science department is highly reputable.” Colleges are willing to accept students who can give specific reasons why the school is perfect for them apart from being top of the ranking list. Make use of the college’s website and literature to find out about programs, professors, and other opportunities that you find appealing.
• What is a book you love?
  This should not have the form of a book review. Don’t just sum up the plot; explain why you find this book enjoyable and what it meant to you. How is your favorite book suggestive of your personality? How does it resonate with it, and how has it become personal to you?
  Remember that honesty is key in answering this question – don’t opt for a classic from your literature class in an attempt to seem smarter. Writing passionately about a book, which you like, is way better than writing trite things about a book that does not impress you whatsoever.
• What is the most unusual but meaningful activity to you?
  Do not fall back on clichés or generalities. Jump at the opportunity to look into an experience that helped you to discover something you were not previously aware of, something that forced you to step out of your comfort zone, or impelled to grow spiritually. At times, it is better to write about something that was challenging to you, but taught you useful lessons, than to write about something that was easy for you simply because it sounds appealing.