Insider Advice from Senior Mentor Kelly: How to Wow Admissions Officers with Your Common App Essay

Kelly: One of the most critical factors is the level of thought behind the essay. A surface-level narrative that simply recounts events without exploring their significance will not stand out to admissions officers. Admissions committees at top schools aren’t just looking for a well-written story—they want to see sophisticated, nuanced, critical thinking.

A standout essay will demonstrate that the applicant is capable of introspection, can reflect on their experiences with honesty and curiosity, and has undergone meaningful personal growth; it should provide the reader with insights into the student’s values, thought process, and how they approach the world around them.

Kelly: The Common App essay is a broad personal statement that gives students the freedom to explore any topic that showcases who they are, how they think, and what they value. It should provide a holistic sense of the applicant as both a person and a scholar in their own words.

Supplemental essays, on the other hand, are school-specific and often focus on a student’s interest in the particular college and academic program, as well as how their personal experiences align with the school’s values. While the Common App essay is a chance for students to introduce themselves broadly, supplemental essays require students to write specifically and in depth about their unique candidacy for the institution and program to which they are seeking admission.

Kelly: In my opinion, a strong Common App essay has four essential qualities: specificity, creativity, authenticity, and depth of introspection.

• Specificity: The personal essay should tell a story only you can tell—and in a way that only you would tell it. In other words, students should choose an engaging narrative that provides a distinct glimpse into their background, worldview, defining experiences, and values. Even if the story is one that isn’t entirely unique or world-changing (after all, you aren’t the only student to make noodles with your Nonna or backpack the Appalachian Trail), you should consider how to write your essay in such a way that it captures your unique voice. Whether humor, wordplay, wit, or poetic flourish is your thing, showcase it in your essay.
• Creativity: The essays that stand out to admissions officers are those that surprise, subvert expectations, and shed fresh light on ordinary or mundane things. With this in mind, think about how you might use your essay to draw unexpected connections or draw thoughtful insight from something others would ignore. This requires students to ditch the clichés and think outside the box!
• Authenticity: Admissions officers can tell when an essay is trying too hard to impress. You may not have cured cancer or hiked Mount Everest—and that’s okay! What matters is not sharing the flashiest story, but instead reflecting on your honest and genuine experiences. To that end, be as transparent as you can be—don’t exaggerate or seek to make yourself the hero of the narrative, but show growth and reflection.
• Introspection: Great essays are less about the narrative itself and more about how the narrative lends insights into a student’s values, thought process, personal and intellectual development, and self-perception. The focus shouldn’t just be on what happened, but also on what you learned and how it shaped you. Consider how you can elegantly integrate these takeaways into your writing.

Kelly: Admissions officers are wary of essays that feel exaggerated or insincere. Overinflating one’s accomplishments is therefore one of the quickest ways to turn admissions officers off from your application. For instance, if you went on a three-day service trip to Eastern Europe, claiming that you provided humanitarian aid on the frontlines in Ukraine is not only an admission faux pas, but also deeply unethical, and will call into question your candidacy and character.

Similarly, essays that focus too much on personal achievements without demonstrating depth of thought or self-awareness will likely alienate admissions committees. Avoid hero narratives or listing your accolades. You are not perfect—and admissions officers know that! They are not looking for students without flaws; they are looking for students who understand their own shortcomings and have made meaningful steps to reflect, learn, and grow. All in all, rather than writing an essay that you think will impress admissions officers, it is critical to genuinely reflect on your experiences and identity through your writing.

Kelly: One of the best ways for students to avoid clichés is to focus on experiences that have actively shaped their perspective rather than simply recounting events that happened to them. Essays that center on passive experiences—such as witnessing an inspiring moment or having a sudden realization—can feel generic if they don’t demonstrate how the student engaged with and grew from an experience. Instead, students should focus on moments where they took initiative, made decisions, or actively explored their interests.

There are certain topics that admissions officers are likely to see repeatedly in any given admissions cycle: the sports story, the inspiring (grand)parent story, the travelogue. This doesn’t necessarily mean that students need to trash their draft if they are planning to write on something that could fall into one of these clichés.

However, it does mean that they should be particularly cautious when writing about one of these more common topics—it is all the more essential to ensure that they approach the material from a unique and dynamic angle. How can they tell this story in a way that will be memorable and eye-catching for the admissions officer who reads it?

Kelly: At Command Education, the essay review process is thorough and highly collaborative, and a student’s essay goes through multiple stages of evaluation and feedback before submission. In the first phase, students work closely with their Senior Mentor to ideate and select a strong topic, draft their essay, and edit and polish their work. This takes place over numerous meetings, as the mentor provides targeted, in-depth feedback on every revision throughout the process. If a mentor or student has specific questions that require a second opinion, they will solicit feedback from their second reader or another member of our broader team.

Once the student composes a strong draft, we bring in a fresh set of eyes from a second reader. This is another expert mentor on the team who has never met the student and therefore is able to simulate the experience of an admissions officer evaluating their writing. The second reader provides feedback on aspects of the essay that aren’t clear or require further explication and sends the draft back to the student and Senior Mentor; this process is often iterative as we seek to polish and perfect the essay.

Finally, personal statements, supplemental essays to reach schools, and any other critical essays are reviewed by a team lead or distributed to a wider group of mentors to ensure thorough review before the student presses “submit.”

Kelly: The college essay is a distinct—and distinctly challenging—genre of writing, and coming up with a fresh angle that fulfills the many needs of its format can be challenging. We help students who start working with Command Education early in their high school careers prepare for the process of writing their essay and carving out a clear and distinct narrative for themselves far in advance.

When it comes to the writing process itself, mentors offer invaluable brainstorming support to help students look at their experiences from new vantage points and find the kind of creative and thoughtful perspective that admissions officers are looking for. Finally, a strong application narrative can be easily thwarted by sloppy writing—having a diverse team of experts read through students work and provide feedback gives students the assurance that they are truly putting their best foot forward to admissions officers.