- https://www.commonapp.

org/blog/2021-2022-common-app-essay-prompts
- Common app prompts
- Essays should
- involve choice
- involve change
- Show how you’re defining yourself as an adult apart from childhood or parents.
- Questions
- What do you value?
- Why should colleges value you?
- What is the essay only you can write?
- Qualities of a good essay
- Genuine, honest, self-aware, humility, and open to not knowing everything
- Doesn’t need to resolve itself at the end. Can just say “I don’t know who I am”.
- Vulnerability, personal growth, specific, and can sometimes be mundane.
- Use rhetorical tools
- Use specifics names of places, dates, house numbers, people.
- Should begin with a desire, which drives you to make a choice
- Can be playful
- https://apply.jhu.edu/application-process/essays-that-worked/
- JHU essay examples

Steps of the Essay:

1. Want/Desire/Need
2. False Victory
3. Obstacles
4. All is Lost
5. Transformation
6. Tru Victory/Self-Knowledge
OR
1. Inciting incident: what gets the ball rolling?
2. Rising action: how are you living your life? What's going on behind this desire you have?
3. Obstacle: what challenge occurs?
4. Dark night of the soul: the lowest point. SHOW YOUR STRUGGLE.
5. EPIPHANY!: you figure stuff out
6. Conclusion: What you learned

Writing tips:
- Repetition in first drafts is okay
- Include details for all senses
- Adverbs, adjectives, and verbs are important
- Include emotions
- Show dont tell!