the 2021 college essays on money

• Entrepreneurship
• Privacy Policy
• Copyright Policy
• Professional Profile | Digital Business Card
• Global Business Profile
• Growth Pioneers
• Leading Entrepreneurs of the World
• Upcoming Events
• Global Business Central
• $ 0 0 items

Welcome to 1BusinessWorld ®

From the heart to higher education: the 2021 college essays on money.

Home » News, Insights & Trends » Business » From the Heart to Higher Education: The 2021 College Essays on Money

***Despite the loud busking music, arcade lights and swarms of people, it was hard to be distracted from the corner street stall serving steaming cupfuls of tteokbokki — a medley of rice cake and fish cake covered in a concoction of hot sweet sauce. I gulped when I felt my friend tugging on the sleeve of my jacket, anticipating that he wanted to try it. After all, I promised to treat him out if he visited me in Korea over winter break.The cups of tteokbokki, garnished with sesame leaves and tempura, was a high-end variant of the street food, nothing …

Related Posts:

Browse Business Central

Accelerate growth with 1BusinessWorld's Global Business Profile

Sign up for free or use coupon code 1BW50 for 50% discount on your subscription

Already have an account?

New to 1BusinessWorld?

Create an account

College Essays About Money Highlighted in The New York Times

Similarly, when you write your college essay, writing your authentic personal story in your own voice makes all the difference. Even though money and status can seem intimidating or even off-limits as topics, they are also worth exploring if they have truly shaped your life experience. A thoughtful exploration of a complex topic makes for a much more interesting read than a topic that plays it safe.

In what has become a yearly tradition, the New York Times recently selected seven stellar examples of college essays about money and work that tackle these complex subjects with honesty and perspective. We’ve selected two of our favorite excerpts to point out the importance of writing in your own unique voice.

1. Rob Henderson’s story speaks for itself and thus his simple telling is hugely effective, showcasing his experiences in all their complexity. The drama of his experience trying understand his mother’s divorce situation unfolds naturally and requires no embellishment. Let’s take a look:

She was a coworker of my mother’s named Shelly. She related that when adults are hurt, they can behave irresponsibly. I was grateful for her honesty and we became close. My mother soon entered a relationship with her. As a young boy, I was puzzled that my mother could now be in a relationship with Shelly. My mother explained that in our society young gay people are often socialized into believing they’re heterosexual and then, as adults, embrace their attraction to the same sex. This blew my 9-year-old mind and intensified my interest in the complexities of human behavior. My mother and her partner Shelly raised me into adolescence. Shelly was shot when I was 14. I was terrified that she wouldn’t survive; I felt great affection for her. I was rejected by other parental figures, yet Shelly chose to help care for me. She survived after extensive surgery and received an insurance settlement which she and my mother used to buy a home. One year later, our home was foreclosed. I’d developed enough resilience to overcome the ordeal and I decided to take initiative.

You couldn’t possibly pack more feeling into this essay. Sometimes a good story just needs to be told and adding extra bells and whistles can lead to overwriting that distracts the reader. Writing in your own natural voice demonstrates both authenticity and self control.

2. Adriane Tharpe begins her essay about working at Domino’s with a description of her fluid identity: “Whenever I donned my black visor and navy blue polo, customers didn’t see an art school feminist who loved banned books, French films and protest songs. I was a face, a face who took orders and tossed pizzas.” From there, her essay continues in its earnest yet quirky exploration of the ways in which pizza can unite people and reveals her to be a keen observer of the world around her. 

Domino’s was like an Island of Misfit Toys floating in the middle of Alabama. My coworkers all joked about each other for what made us different: Richard was a walking Star Wars database, Mike was O.C.D. when it came to stacking pizza boxes, I was a vegetarian who often had to package the meat. Kristen, now 40, had worked at pizzerias since she was 14 and was currently filing applications to enroll in college. Terry preached to a small congregation when he wasn’t delivering. Ever since I moved here, I’ve felt like an outsider in my community. I live for the arts while my town prioritizes football and fishing. The general population is Caucasian, Christian, Republican, anti-gay, and pro-guns — or so I thought. At Domino’s, three of my coworkers fasted for Ramadan, one of the drivers read novels while waiting for deliveries and both of my bosses were women. The people who came in were far from homogenous, as diverse as the pizzas they ordered: Caucasian, Asian, African-American, and Mexican lawyers, firemen, construction workers, stay-at-home mothers, house painters. Many were married, some were divorced and some were single. Many had kids. Many were still kids. I couldn’t help but admire them.

Adriane’s most effective strategy is pointing out a host of details, which reveal not only a keen eye but a genuine compassion for those around her. This ultimately builds to a much larger observation about community and identity.

These are but two small excerpts from a series of stellar highlighted essays.  As you can imagine, all are worth a full read.

Read the rest via The New York Times .

Want essay help on demand? Watch our video series !

Read our guide  to the 2015-16 common app essay., read more about  the college essay advisors process ..

About Thea Hogarth

View all posts by Thea Hogarth »

Written by Thea Hogarth

Category: College Admissions , Essay Tips

Want free stuff?

We thought so. Sign up for free instructional videos, guides, worksheets and more!

One-On-One Advising

Common App Essay Prompt Guide

Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

• YouTube Tutorials
• Our Approach & Team
• Undergraduate Testimonials
• Postgraduate Testimonials
• Where Our Students Get In
• CEA Gives Back
• Undergraduate Admissions
• Graduate Admissions
• Private School Admissions
• International Student Admissions
• Common App Essay Guide
• Supplemental Essay Guide
• Coalition App Guide
• The CEA Podcast
• Admissions Stats
• Notification Trackers
• Deadline Databases
• College Essay Examples
• Academy and Worksheets
• Waitlist Guides
• Get Started

• Newsletters
• Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

I Signed Up to Write College Essays for Rich Kids. I Found Cheating Is More Complicated Than I Thought.

Like many English majors before me, I found myself walking across the graduation stage in 2019 knowing my college days were behind me—and that I’d soon be unemployed. Despite giving it my all and winding up with a near-perfect GPA, my only immediate options were continuing my part-time bartending job or going to grad school. Since I had already amassed nearly $70,000 in student loans, I chose the former.

For much of the next year, I bartended at the most popular pub in my college town, along with some freelance gigs. Then COVID hit. The bar closed. At first, they told us we’d only be off for two weeks to “stop the spread.” Two weeks turned to two months. Soon came a group text that the bar would be shutting down indefinitely.

When it came to stimulus checks and unemployment, part-time bartenders who are listed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns aren’t entitled to much. I was screwed. My self-esteem cratered. I was fighting with my parents daily. I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and the countless work-at-home jobs I was applying to had landed me zero interviews.

Toward the end of April 2020, a college friend of mine reached out: “Are you looking for work? I work for this essay writing service, and they’re offering referral bonuses to anyone who joins the team.”

He told me he was writing essays for college kids for a website called Killer Papers, and he was making tons of money. The owner had claimed 30 percent sales growth since most students had moved to distance learning.

Just 24 hours later, I had already interviewed and written my first essay: $40 for a three-page “reflection paper” on how COVID had been affecting college students. Fitting.

I got a quick education on what this system for black-market essays really looks like. The overarching stereotype is that privileged sons and daughters of wealthy families use their money to cheat their way out of their work and into a degree. And … sure, this is often true.

“My parents are doctors, so we’re pretty loaded,” said one client, who claimed he was “cool with the owner of the site” and had been using it since 2017.

“Oh, nice!” I said as I ate my grilled cheese and typed my seventh paper of the day from the basement of my parents’ house.

More disappointing were the many parents who encouraged this behavior, with some going as far as requesting the essay and purchasing it all without their kid lifting a finger. Their children were so lazy that they couldn’t even work with me to get it done. “My son is on the lacrosse team, so try to incorporate a sports struggle into this narrative,” one mother instructed me. I did as I was asked, so long as they left me a tip so I could afford gas.

But for every privileged kid too lazy to write an essay, there was a more complex story. To my surprise, of the hundreds of clients I worked with, many—maybe most—students were simply desperate for the help.

They were not rich. Students would try to negotiate prices or work out payment plans. They said things like “I’ll be back to accept your offer on Friday when my check clears.” An assistant manager at Taco Bell, a drive-through operator at Wendy’s, a cashier at Whole Foods— you name it. My clients had a variety of low-income jobs and attended classes simultaneously. I’d ask them a question about their project, and they wouldn’t get back for a day or two. When I’d finally hear back, they’d say, “Sorry, I was working a double.”

And more often than not, it wasn’t students—or parents—at elite colleges purchasing papers. It was students at community colleges working for minimum wage who didn’t have time to write them.

It was single parents who had to balance work, child care, and college. They often had kids and multiple jobs, and they were just trying to advance their careers with a degree.

It was international college students. A few clients from China told me they could crush any American in calculus, but when it came to writing an English essay for their American lit class, they were at a major disadvantage, especially when COVID began and they went back to China.

The university writing centers that many relied on closed or moved online, but time zone differences meant it was tough to get the help they needed. When faced with the prospect of getting a poor mark or cheating, they chose the latter.

There was also the COVID factor. Variations of “I’ve been following Killer Paper’s Instagram page for years, but I never thought I’d use the site. I’m just so depressed, and my work is piling up” would fill my site inbox as quarantines continued to be extended.

And it got worse. My clients lost friends, family, and even professors. One customer told me that they were on their third professor of the semester for the same course last fall because the first two had died from COVID.

For all the official grumbling about services like mine among professors, I learned something else too: Many professors don’t want to be bothered with students’ struggles. As COVID marched on, so did the deadlines, and a lot of the professors were quite rigid with their rules. On the rubrics I would read from students, I remember seeing one that said, “No missed deadlines. I don’t want to hear your sob story.”

Many of my fellow essay writers themselves were in academia—they wrote papers for students because they couldn’t make ends meet.

If you had told me in March 2020 that in a few months, I’d be making more money as an academic ghostwriter than I ever had in my entire life, I’d have thought you were full of it. In the summer, it was never more than $500 a week for roughly 10 to 12 essays. But during the semester, it could be up to $2,000 a week for 30 to 40 projects—a numbing amount of writing, but a lot of cash.

By the time I started, I was too desperate to worry about the ethics. I felt more bad about the students who were scraping by and paying me for this work, but I developed a payment system where I cut minimum-fee deals for the clients who really needed it. And I justified it to myself, because I had been so out of options.

Eventually, I couldn’t do it anymore, and more opportunities opened up. I went back to bartending when my area reopened. I proofread ebooks, books, and college admissions essays, plus a little freelance writing like this. More “respectable.” But my own little slice of pandemic desperation gave me a window into what many others deal with no matter the times.

From the Heart to Higher Education: The 2021 College Essays on Money

Each year, we ask high school seniors to send us college application essays that touch on money, work or social class. Here are five from this year’s incoming college freshmen. Read More

Pinnacle Financial

The Pinnacle team’s primary objective is to provide holistic financial strategies. Our ultimate vision is to educate clients about their own personal financial challenges and potential solutions regarding complex financial issues.

Previous Post Your Job Doesn’t Have to Be Your Passion

Next post tips for teenagers on landing a summer job.

Comments are closed.

P: (321) 454-3623 Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM

1351 N Courtenay Pkwy. Suite BB Merritt Island, FL 32953

Stay Updated

• First Name *
• Last Name *
• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Securities offered through Arete Wealth Management, LLC, members FINRA , and SIPC . Investment advisory services offered through Arete Wealth Advisors, LLC an SEC registered investment advisory firm. Pinnacle Financial Wealth Management, CSA and CSS are independent entities. Securities and investments involve risk. Risks related to securities and investment products can never be completely eliminated. Information is provided to gain an understanding of our services and capabilities and should not be considered investment advice. Investment advice is rendered to clients only after a discovery process that provides Pinnacle with a complete understanding of the client's goals. financial situation and tolerance for risk. The content is developed from sources believed to be providing accurate information. The information in this material is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. The opinions expressed and materials provided are for general information and should not be considered a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security.

• Book Appointment
• (321) 454-3623

Get In Touch

Office address.

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

Prize-winning essays on the future of money

Limited time offer, save 50% on standard digital, explore more offers..

Then $75 per month. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism. Cancel anytime during your trial.

Premium Digital

Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

• Global news & analysis
• Expert opinion
• FT App on Android & iOS
• FT Edit app
• FirstFT: the day's biggest stories
• 20+ curated newsletters
• Follow topics & set alerts with myFT
• FT Videos & Podcasts
• 20 monthly gift articles to share
• Lex: FT's flagship investment column
• 15+ Premium newsletters by leading experts
• FT Digital Edition: our digitised print edition

FT Digital Edition

10% off your first year. The new FT Digital Edition: today’s FT, cover to cover on any device. This subscription does not include access to ft.com or the FT App.

Terms & Conditions apply

Explore our full range of subscriptions.

Why the ft.

See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times.

15 Great College Essays That Worked in 2021 With Examples

 Let’s check out the list of college essay topics to choose from. 

But before that: 

We’ll have two interesting brainstorming exercises to help you find your own college essay topics

The question is; How do I know these exercises really work? Because over the years our team has worked with thousands of students, many of them of who are similar to you. 

• Have satisfactory grades and a pretty good but not extraordinary SAT score
• Who are in doubt because they don’t have excellent extracurricular activities to write about
• They know their essay could make a difference in their college application but they don’t know where to start.

Do you find yourself in the same shoes? 

What we can do is, we’ll go through step-by-step brainstorming exercises, find a topic that’s elastic, meaning a long enough topic talk, where there are lots of different parts of you, which is a feature you’ll find in most outstanding personal statements.

Great brainstorming leads to a great application. Check out an example of a student’s brainstorming exercises and the essays and applications that brainstorming led to. 

The Values Exercise

With this exercise, you can identify your core values and your ambitions by answering this question: What do I value?

Values Exercise | College Essay Brainstorming Exercise

Download a printable version of the values worksheet, here 

The Essence Objects Exercise 

This brainstorming exercise has effective ways to create a lot of content for your personal statement and add flexibility to bring your essay to life.

Besides that, it’s just fun to do and a great way to reflect.

 Have a look at this video and know what’s one of your essences objects

Essence Objects Exercise | College Essay Brainstorming Exercise

Check out the list of questions to help you with the exercise.

• What’s something you never leave home without?
• What’s a snack you crave?
• A food that reminds you of your family?
• A food that reminds you of home?
• A tradition that reminds you of home?
• What else reminds you of home?
• An object that represents your best friend?
• An object that represents your father? Your mother?
• Your grandparents, or lack thereof?
• Something you loved and lost?
• A toy you used to play with as a kid?
• Something that makes you laugh?
• A book you love? Best movie ever?
• Favorite guilty pleasure movie?
• An object that represents something abstract that you broke (a heart, a promise)?
• An object that represents a regret?
• A favorite gift you received? A favorite gift you gave?
• An object that represents a secret? (Don’t worry, this stays between us.)
• Something about you no one else knows?
• Something you stole?
• Something you found?
• Something that makes you feel safe?
• The worst thing that ever happened to you?
• The best thing?
• The logo on your imaginary business card?
• The image you’d like carved into your tombstone?
• An object that represents: a smell you love, a smell you hate, a taste you love, a taste you hate, the sweetest sound in the world?
• The most remarkable thing about science?
• Something you forgot?
• Something old? Something new? Something borrowed? Something blue?
• An accident?
• The best thing you ever found in the street?
• Best money you ever spent?
• Does your life lie? Your favorite object?
• Something from another country?
• Your favorite sentence?
• You’d cry if you lost this?
• An object that represents someone you’d like to know more about?
• Something you’ll never get rid of?
• A bad habit?
• A perfect moment?
• A time you laughed so hard you cried?
• A time you cried so hard you laughed?
• An image you’ll never forget?
• What they’d put in the museum of your life?
• The cover image on your first self-titled album?
• Three objects from your room?
• A near-death experience?
• A moment when you were so embarrassed you wanted to disappear?
• Recurring dream?
• Worst (actual) nightmare?
• When were you most afraid?
• If you had a clone, what would you have the clone do?
• First love?
• A time you were speechless?
• The moment you left childhood behind?
• A quotation you love?
• Your favorite photo?

The “Everything I want colleges to know about me.” 

How to Figure out Everything You Want Colleges to Know About You

Create a list of things you want colleges to know about you. 

• You can do this in a bullet point format or
• You can do this on a blank sheet of paper
• You can do it on a timeline 

For more detailed instructions, head here. 

College Essay Topic Examples 

Check out the list of essay topics that actually worked

Essay topic title: The Burying Grandma

They covered the precious mahogany coffin with a brown amalgam of rocks, decomposed organisms, and weeds. It was my turn to take the shovel, but I felt too ashamed to dutifully send her off when I had not properly said goodbye. I refused to throw dirt on her. I refused to let go of my grandmother, to accept a death I had not seen coming, to believe that an illness could not only interrupt but steal a beloved life. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title: The “Laptop Stickers” 

My laptop is like a passport. It is plastered with stickers all over the outside, inside, and bottom. Each sticker is a stamp, representing a place I've been, a passion I've pursued, or a community I've belonged to. These stickers make for an untraditional first impression at a meeting or presentation, but it's one I'm proud of. Let me take you on a quick tour. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title: The “Punk Rock Philosopher”

I am on Oxford Academy’s Speech and Debate Team, in both the Parliamentary Debate division and the Lincoln-Douglass debate division. I write screenplays, short stories, and opinionated blogs and am a regular contributor to my school literary magazine, The Gluestick. I have accumulated over 300 community service hours that includes work at homeless shelters, libraries, and special education youth camps. I have been evaluated by the College Board and have placed within the top percentile. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title:  The “Granda’s Kimchi” 

Every Saturday morning, I’d awaken to the smell of crushed garlic and piquant pepper. I would stumble into the kitchen to find my grandma squatting over a large silver bowl, mixing fat lips of fresh cabbages with garlic, salt, and red pepper. That was how the delectable Korean dish, kimchi, was born every weekend at my home. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title: The “Travel and Language”  

When I was very little, I caught the travel bug. It started after my grandparents first brought me to their home in France and I have now been to twenty-nine different countries. Each has given me a unique learning experience. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title: The “Dead Bird” College Essay Example 

Smeared blood, shredded feathers. Clearly, the bird was dead. But wait the slight fluctuation of its chest, the slow blinking of its shiny black eyes. No, it was alive. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title: The “I shot my brother” 

From page 54 of the maroon notebook sitting on my mahogany desk:

“Then Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me.” - Genesis 4:13. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title: The “Porcelain God”

Bowing down to the porcelain god, I emptied the contents of my stomach. Foaming at the mouth, I was ready to pass out. My body couldn’t stop shaking as I gasped for air, and the room started spinning. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title: The “Five Families” Essay Example 

When I was 16, I lived with the Watkins family in Wichita, Kansas. Mrs. Watkins was the coordinator of the foreign exchange student program I was enrolled in. She had a nine-year-old son named Cody. I would babysit Cody every day after school for at least two to three hours. We would play Scrabble or he would read to me from Charlotte’s Web or The Ugly Duckling. He would talk a lot about his friends and school life, and I would listen to him and ask him the meanings of certain words. He was my first friend in the New World. To read the full essay, click here

Essay topic title:  The “Happiness Spreadsheet” Essay Example

This one is Montage Essay, “Essence Object” Type

Meditation over a flaxen sunset with a friend and parmesan-topped spaghetti for dinner — “14.” Assignments piling up on my desk as a high fever keeps me sick at home — “3.” Taking a photo excursion through downtown Seattle for a Spanish project — “15.” For the past 700 days and counting, the Happiness Spreadsheet has been my digital collection for documenting numerical, descriptive, and graphical representations of my happiness. Its instructions are simple: Open the Google Sheet, enter a number between 1 and 20 that best represents my level of happiness, and write a short comment describing the day. But the practical aspect of the spreadsheet is only a piece of what it has represented in my life. To read the full essay, click here .

Essay topic title: The “food” essay example 

Another Montage Essay, “I Love/I Know” Type

I’ve spent most of my life as an anti-vegetable carboholic.  For years, processed snack foods ruled the kitchen kingdom of my household, and animal products outnumbered plant-based offerings. To read the full essay, click here . 

Essay topic title: The “Translating” College Essay Example

Montage Essay, “Skill/Superpower” Type

".miK ijniM" This is how I wrote my name until I was seven. I was a left-handed kid who wrote from right to left, which made my writing comprehensible only to myself. Only after years of practice did I become an ambidextrous writer who could translate my incomprehensible writing. As I look back on my life, I realized that this was my first act of translation.  To read the full essay, click here . 

Essay topic title: Countdown days

Day 19: I am using my school uniform as a slate to tally the days. As the ink slowly seeps through the fabric of my shirt, I begin to understand that being a conscious Arab comes with a cost.

Day 7: I come across a live stream on social media, 1,200 Palestinian political prisoners are on their seventh day of a hunger strike against the Israeli occupation. It is the first I have heard of its occurrence. I allow myself to follow the news daily through social media while regional mainstream media and our local news channels refrain from reporting any news of the strike. To read the full essay, click here .

Essay topic title: My journey in Hajj

Day 1: “Labbayka Allāhumma Labbayk. Labbayk Lā Sharīka Laka Labbayk,” we chant, sweat dripping onto the wispy sand in brutal Arabian heat, as millions of us prepare to march from the rocky desert hills of Mount Arafat to the cool, flat valleys of Muzdalifa. As we make our way into the Haram, my heart shakes. Tears rolling down my cheeks, we circumvent the Ka’ba one last time before embarking on Hajj, the compulsory pilgrimage of Islam. It became the spiritual, visceral, and linguistic journey of a lifetime. To read the full essay, click here .

Essay topic title: 12

12 is the number of my idol, Tom Brady. It’s the sum of all the letters in my name. It’s also how old I was when I started high school. In short, I skipped two grades: first and sixth. Between kindergarten and eighth grade, I attended five schools, including two different styles of homeschooling (three years at a co-op and one in my kitchen). Before skipping, I was perennially bored. To read the full essay, click here .

You Might Also Like

Brainstorming for College Essays

This Article is intended to help you brainstorm and begin writing your personal statement essay and all the other college essays. This is a key step to write persuasive college essays

How to Write a Recommendation Letter for College Admissions

Learn some tips that you can do to ensure that your recommendation letter get accepted and you can get admission in your dream university/college - Read a blog

Know All the Different Types of Scholarships Available

Want to get college scholarship for your study? Know about scholarship programs & check the availability of different types of scholarships - Read our blog

Free Resources

More From Forbes

What a new study on college essays and family income really means.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Main Campus of Stanford University

People concerned about the fairness of college admissions are seizing on a new study from Stanford’s Center for Education and Policy Analysis to argue that colleges should keep using standardized tests to decide who gets in. During the pandemic, some 60% of U.S. colleges made submission of test scores optional.

“Hey let’s dump the SAT bc the rest of the admissions process is so equitable,” tweeted Susan Dynarski, a professor of education and public policy at the University of Michigan. She followed the tweet with an eye-roll emoji.

The 26-page study, “Essay Content is Strongly Related to Household Income and SAT Scores,” appears to support the idea that in addition to scoring consistently above their low-income counterparts on the SAT, students from high-income households submit essays that are more likely to secure them a spot at a selective college. Reported family income is an even better predictor of essay quality than of test scores, according to the study.

“Results show that essays have a stronger correlation to reported household income than SAT scores,” says the study’s abstract. “Efforts to realize more equitable college admissions protocols can be informed by attending to how social class is encoded in non-numerical components of applications.”

But the study has led many readers to an ill-informed conclusion, say admissions aficionados. In a Twitter thread about the study, Paul Tough, author of The Inequality Machine: How College Divides Us , says: “It turns out rich kids use more commas and colons. Poor kids use more verbs and pronouns. Rich kids write about physics and China. Poor kids write about family members and helping others. Cool findings. But.”

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Saturday, September 28

Lady gaga previews ‘joker: folie à deux’ with companion album ‘harlequin’, 3 things to consider when your partner betrays you—by a psychologist.

He continues: “This paper tells us absolutely nothing about how those tendencies correlate with admissions decisions.”

William Conley, who spent his 40-year career in admissions and enrollment management at Johns Hopkins, Case Western and Bucknell, agrees. Everyone in the admissions world knows that rich families pay as much as $1,000 an hour to consultants who edit and ghost write essays. Readers can identify such writing in seconds. Words like “plethora” are a giveaway, he says. “They should just use ‘a lot.’”

Admissions officers care much more about grades, course rigor and test scores than they do about essays. A science or math student with a strong record and high scores is unlikely to be rejected because they write a weak essay, says Conley. And a top-notch essay submitted by a weak student is seen as a red flag. “A great essay is not going to mean a school will take somebody who doesn’t measure up academically in performance,” he says, “nor the reverse.”

What’s more, the six academics who wrote the paper, including Mount Holyoke assistant sociology professor Ben Gebre-Medhin, made no attempt to quantify how essays are weighted by admissions offices. “No one knows,” says Gebre-Medhin, who was doing his post-doc at Stanford when work on the paper started.

The authors used software to analyze essays written by nearly 60,000 applicants to the University of California system in 2016. They turned words and phrases into numbers, identifying syntax, word and punctuation choices and correlating those with reported household income. They also looked at essay topics. Lower income students tended to write more about family relationships and school challenges like time management.

That’s not news, says Conley. He adds that many people who read the study are misinformed about how colleges process application essays. “Only 2%-3% of students go to schools that admit fewer than 30% of their applicants,” he says. The other 97%-plus schools hardly count the essay in their admission decision. “This is a first world problem,” he says. “It’s a champagne problem.”

• Editorial Standards
• Forbes Accolades

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

The 2021-22 Common Application Essay Prompts

Tips and Guidance for the 7 Essay Options on the New Common Application

• College Admissions Process
• College Profiles
• College Rankings
• Choosing A College
• Application Tips
• Essay Samples & Tips
• Testing Graphs
• College Financial Aid
• Advanced Placement
• Homework Help
• Private School
• College Life
• Graduate School
• Business School
• Distance Learning
• Ph.D., English, University of Pennsylvania
• M.A., English, University of Pennsylvania
• B.S., Materials Science & Engineering and Literature, MIT

For the 2021-22 application cycle, the Common Application  essay prompts remain unchanged from the 2020-21 cycle with the exception of an all new option #4. As in the past, with the inclusion of the popular "Topic of Your Choice" option, you have the opportunity to write about anything you want to share with the folks in the admissions office.

The current prompts are the result of much discussion and debate from the member institutions who use the Common Application. The essay length limit stands at 650 words (the minimum is 250 words), and students will need to choose from the seven options below. The essay prompts are designed to encourage reflection and introspection. The best essays focus on self-analysis, rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time merely describing a place or event. Analysis, not description, will reveal the critical thinking skills that are the hallmark of a promising college student. If your essay doesn't include some self-analysis, you haven't fully succeeded in responding to the prompt.

According to the folks at the Common Application , in the 2018-19 admissions cycle, Option #7 (topic of your choice) was the most popular and was used by 24.1% of applicants. The second most popular was Option #5 (discuss an accomplishment) with 23.7% of applicants. In third place was Option #2 on a setback or failure. 21.1% of applicants chose that option.

From the Admissions Desk

"While the transcript and grades will always be the most important piece in the review of an application, essays can help a student stand out. The stories and information shared in an essay are what the Admissions Officer will use to advocate for the student in the admissions committee."

–Valerie Marchand Welsh Director of College Counseling, The Baldwin School Former Associate Dean of Admissions, University of Pennsylvania

Always keep in mind why colleges are asking for an essay: they want to get to know you better. Nearly all selective colleges and universities (as well as many that aren't overly selective) have holistic admissions, and they consider many factors in addition to numerical measures such as grades and standardized test scores. Your essay is an important tool for presenting something you find important that may not come across elsewhere in your application. Make sure your essay presents you as the type of person a college will want to invite to join their community.

Below are the seven options with some general tips for each:

Option #1  

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

"Identity" is at the heart of this prompt. What is it that makes you you? The prompt gives you a lot of latitude for answering the question since you can write a story about your "background, identity, interest, or talent." Your "background" can be a broad environmental factor that contributed to your development such as growing up in a military family, living in an interesting place, or dealing with an unusual family situation. You could write about an event or series of events that had a profound impact on your identity. Your "interest" or "talent" could be a passion that has driven you to become the person you are today. However you approach the prompt, make sure you are inward looking and explain how and why  the story you tell is so meaningful. 

• See more Tips and Strategies for Essay Option #1
• Sample essay for option #1: "Handiwork" by Vanessa
• Sample essay for option #1: "My Dads" by Charlie
• Sample essay for option #1: "Give Goth a Chance"
• Sample essay for option #1: "Wallflower"

Option #2  

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

This prompt may seem to go against everything that you've learned on your path to college. It's far more comfortable in an application to celebrate successes and accomplishments than it is to discuss setbacks and failure. At the same time, you'll impress the college admissions folks greatly if you can show your ability to learn from your failures and mistakes. Be sure to devote significant space to the second half of the question—how did you learn and grow from the experience? Introspection and honesty are key with this prompt.

• See more Tips and Strategies for Essay Option #2
• Sample essay for option #2: "Striking Out" by Richard
• Sample essay for option #2: "Student Teacher" by Max

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Keep in mind how open-ended this prompt truly is. The "belief or idea" you explore could be your own, someone else's, or that of a group. The best essays will be honest as they explore the difficulty of working against the status quo or a firmly held belief. The answer to the final question about the "outcome" of your challenge need not be a success story. Sometimes in retrospection, we discover that the cost of an action was perhaps too great. However you approach this prompt, your essay needs to reveal one of your core personal values. If the belief you challenged doesn't give the admissions folks a window into your personality, then you haven't succeeded with this prompt.

• See more Tips and Strategies for Essay Option #3
• Sample essay for option #3: "Gym Class Hero" by Jennifer

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Here, again, the Common Application gives you a lot of options for approaching the question since it is entirely up to you to decide what the "something" and "someone" will be. This prompt was added to the Common Application in the 2021-22 admissions cycle in part because it gives students the opportunity to write something heartfelt and uplifting after all the challenges of the previous year. The best essays for this prompt show that you are a generous person who recognizes the contributions others have made to your personal journey. Unlike many essays that are all about "me, me, me," this essay shows your ability to appreciate others. This type of generosity is an important character trait that schools look for when inviting people to join their campus communities.

• See more Tips and Strategies for Essay Option #4

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

This question was reworded in 2017-18 admissions cycle, and the current language is a huge improvement. The prompt use to talk about transitioning from childhood to adulthood, but the new language about a "period of personal growth" is a much better articulation of how we actually learn and mature (no single event makes us adults). Maturity comes as the result of a long train of events and accomplishments (and failures). This prompt is an excellent choice if you want to explore a single event or achievement that marked a clear milestone in your personal development. Be careful to avoid the "hero" essay—admissions offices are often overrun with essays about the season-winning touchdown or brilliant performance in the school play (see the list of bad essay topics for more about this issue). These can certainly be fine topics for an essay, but make sure your essay is analyzing your personal growth process, not bragging about an accomplishment.

• See more Tips and Strategies for Essay Option #5
• Sample essay for option #5: "Buck Up" by Jill

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

This option was entirely new in 2017, and it's a wonderfully broad prompt. In essence, it's asking you to identify and discuss something that enthralls you. The question gives you an opportunity to identify something that kicks your brain into high gear, reflect on why it is so stimulating, and reveal your process for digging deeper into something that you are passionate about. Note that the central words here—"topic, idea, or concept"—all have rather academic connotations. While you may lose track of time when running or playing football, sports are probably not the best choice for this particular question.

• See more Tips and Strategies for Essay Option #6

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

The popular "topic of your choice" option had been removed from the Common Application between 2013 and 2016, but it returned again with the 2017-18 admissions cycle. Use this option if you have a story to share that doesn't quite fit into any of the options above. However, the first six topics are extremely broad with a lot of flexibility, so make sure your topic really can't be identified with one of them. Also, don't equate "topic of your choice" with a license to write a comedy routine or poem (you can submit such things via the "Additional Info" option). Essays written for this prompt still need to have substance and tell your reader something about you. Cleverness is fine, but don't be clever at the expense of meaningful content.

• See more Tips and Strategies for Essay Option #7
• Sample essay for option #7: "My Hero Harpo" by Alexis
• Sample essay for option #7: "Grandpa's Rubik's Cube"

Final Thoughts

Whichever prompt you chose, make sure you are looking inward. What do you value? What has made you grow as a person? What makes you the unique individual the admissions folks will want to invite to join their campus community? The best essays spend significant time with self-analysis rather than merely describing a place or event.

The folks at The Common Application have cast a wide net with these questions, and nearly anything you want to write about could fit under at least one of the options. If your essay could fit under more than one option, it really doesn't matter which one you choose. Many admissions officers, in fact, don't even look at which prompt you chose—they just want to see that you have written a good essay.

• Common Application Essay Option 4—Gratitude
• Tips for the Pre-2013 Personal Essay Options on the Common Application
• Augsburg College Admissions
• Christian Brothers University Admissions
• Centenary University Admissions
• Maryville University of Saint Louis Admissions
• Saint Mary's College Admissions Facts
• Carroll College Admissions
• Birmingham-Southern College Admissions
• Coe College Admissions
• Woodbury University Admissions
• William Jewell College Admissions
• Centenary College of Louisiana Admissions
• Lipscomb University Admissions
• SUNY Fredonia Admissions
• California Lutheran University Admissions

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Pictures of Themselves: The 2020 College Essays on Money

Each year, we ask high school seniors to send us college application essays that touch on money, work or social class. Here are four from this year’s incoming college freshmen.

By Ron Lieber

Consider these dispatches from the time before.

Before the coronavirus, before college students went home and stayed there, before protests amplified calls for racial justice, a whole bunch of teenagers did a normal thing at a normal time: They tried to say something meaningful about who they were to a collection of strangers who could give them access to a great education.

Reading their college application essays now, it’s hard not to feel at least a little bit optimistic for the future. They hustle. They make do. They reckon with themselves, how they see the world and how they are seen in it, too.

Each year, I ask graduating seniors to send me application essays about work, money, social class or related topics. We adults don’t talk about money and our feelings about it often enough, so it only seems right to try to learn from the teenagers who have figured out how to do it well.

And so here, we meet the artist who works amid her immigrant parents’ construction projects, a Black man who uses poetry to provide a dose of perspective, an unlikely conveyance in upscale Connecticut and the maker of a blanket that stands for so much more.

Vienna, Va.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .