Top 3 Tips for Answering Common App Prompt 3
Top 3 Tips for Answering Common App Prompt 3
“Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?”
Are you the kind of student who challenges the system? Are you prone to asking the question “why” when told to do something? Do you follow up that questioning with your own research? If this sounds like you, then Common App prompt 3 might be a great question for you to use as the basis for your personal statement.
Admissions officers value independent thinkers. They love reading stories about how you drew your own conclusions, challenged convention, forged new connections, or inspired change within others. A well-written account that reflects on why it was important for you to question or challenge a belief can help paint a captivating picture of the value you’ll add to their campus.
If this topic resonates with you, consider these three key pieces of advice before you go any further. They will help you avoid common pitfalls and position your essay to stand out.
Be Careful How You Write about Beliefs that You Should Challenge
There are certain ideas – racism, sexism, homophobia, and cyber-bullying, among others come to mind – that you should challenge when faced with them. It is widely expected that you don’t support them. Thus, writing about them can be difficult unless you are willing and able to make the narrative much more personal.
What are the stakes involved for you speaking out? Were you putting long-term friendships on the line, or running the risk of alienating yourself from your family? Your reader will need to understand the costs of your actions for them to stand out in an admissions context. If you don’t feel as though challenging that belief or idea made a significant impact in your own life, neither will your reader; it’s wise in this case to consider a different prompt or example.
Remember, Common App prompt 3 is asking you to recount a turning point in your life. The fact that you challenged a belief or idea is almost secondary to the aftermath – what you learned, what you endured, what lessons you have applied to your life moving forward.
Religion and Politics are Risky Topics
Etiquette dictates you don’t talk about politics or religion at the dinner table (though not everyone agrees). As a general rule, this is true of your personal statement as well.
You are writing for an unknown reader in almost every case. You won’t be aware of that person’s background, political leanings, or prejudices. If whether or not they share your viewpoint is crucial to how your essays reads, we suggest you choose a different topic. Remember, your main goal is to create allies for yourself among the admissions office. Your emotional take on encountering someone who supported a different presidential candidate can be compelling; but it comes with significant risks.
Here, too, if you feel like your best topic is related to a political or religious disagreement that you leaned into, we encourage you to get as specific as you can in your essay. Make your writing personal and avoid generalizations and clichés wherever possible.
Rather than making blanket statements about how people who disagree with you must feel or behave, highlight the challenges of one particular instance and how they forced you to grow. What new information did you have to consider? How did you try on someone else’s perspective, even if it didn’t ultimately change your mind? These are the kinds of details that will add personality and specificity to your essay.
Beware the “Savior Complex”
Sometimes you encounter a belief or idea that’s different from your own and you’re able to convince the other person that your way of thinking is correct or at least better for them. Perhaps you persuaded your younger sibling not to quit an activity when it got difficult, or you showed a student you met on a service trip that math could be fun, or you convinced an older relative to be more tolerant of something out of their comfort zone.
These are all great things, and you should feel proud if they apply to you! However, there is a danger in writing about them; if you’re not careful, your tone can infuse your writing with a “savior complex.” There’s an important line between casting yourself as the main character of your essay and casting yourself as the “knight in shining armor.”
Admissions officers want to see evidence of your growth and how you dealt with the inevitable hurdles that arise on your journey. It’s important that you tell a story that allows you to reflect on these areas as well as your successes. Creating a three-dimensional image of yourself will read more believably in the admissions process than if you tell a story of how you, an enlightened high school student, bestowed ultimate wisdom and insight on someone else.
Writing a compelling personal statement using Common App prompt 3 as a starting point is possible if you begin with a strong example and refine it over the course of multiple drafts, remembering your audience and accounting for the unintended messages inherent in your story. We encourage you to start early and to keep on challenging beliefs and ideas that need rethinking!
The expert admissions consultants at Wise World Prep have helped hundreds of students maximize their potential of being admitted to their top choice colleges and universities. Over 20 years, we have successfully guided students through each stage of the application process – from choosing competitive high school courses to building an appropriate college list to drafting winning essays to writing persuasive update and appeals letters. We would be happy to answer your questions and partner with you to create a successful admissions roadmap.
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