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Common App Essay Prompts: 2025-2026

This blog reviews the 2025–2026 Common App essay prompts, explains each one, shares strategies, gives tips, and includes sample responses to help applicants write essays that fit Common App guidelines

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Common App Essay Prompts: 2025-2026

The Common Application has announced key updates for the 2025-2026 application cycle. This guide outlines the changes and provides a full list of all essay prompts you will encounter.

60-second quiz

Which Common App prompt fits you?

Answer 7 quick questions. We'll match you to the prompt that fits your voice and give you brainstorm questions to start drafting.

Key Changes for 2025-2026

  • "Additional Information" Word Limit: The word limit for this section has been reduced from 650 to 300 words. This change encourages you to be more concise and focused when sharing extra details.
  • New "Challenges and Circumstances" Section: The previous "Community Disruption" question is now a more general "Challenges and Circumstances" section. This new prompt replaces the old COVID-19 question, allowing you to discuss any significant personal hurdle you have faced, with a maximum of 250 words.
  • Personal Statement Prompts Unchanged: The seven main Personal Statement prompts, with a 650-word limit, remain the same as in previous years.

Main Personal Statement Prompts (Choose 1, 650-word limit)

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 and Background Essay Q&A Slides

Q: Which story to tell?

A:

  • Choose one specific story.
  • Identity: "Learning my grandmother's native language connected me to my heritage."
  • Talent: "Mastering a magic trick taught me about practice."
  • Interest: "Rebuilding a motorcycle revealed my passion for engineering."
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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?

Challenge and Setback Essay Q&A Slides

Q: What must the story accomplish?

A:

  • State a specific failure.
  • Detail your response to it.
  • Explain the direct consequence of your response.
  • Isolate one concrete lesson.
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Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Challenging a Belief Essay Q&A Slides

Q: Which belief should I challenge?

A:

  • Avoid political debates.
  • Challenge a personal assumption.
  • Weak: "I argued about politics."
  • Strong: "I thought talent was innate."
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Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you feel happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Gratitude Essay Q&A Slides

Q: Which story should I tell?

A:

  • Select a small, unexpected moment.
  • Weak: "My parents supported me." (Expected).
  • Strong: "A rival debater shared research with me." (Unexpected).
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Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Personal Growth Essay Q&A Slides

Q: Which story shows growth?

A:

  • Select a story about process.
  • Avoid stories about results.
  • Weak: "I won the science fair."
  • Strong: "My project failed three times. I learned from each failure. Then I won."
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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?

Engaging Topic Essay Q&A Slides

Q: Which topic should I choose?

A:

  • Select a niche topic.
  • Show intellectual curiosity.
  • Weak: "I love video games."
  • Strong: "I study level design in 1990s video games."
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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.

Topic of Your Choice Essay Q&A Slides

Q: Which topic reveals character?

A:

  • Avoid generic themes.
  • Choose a specific, personal story.
  • Weak: "The Importance of Friendship."
  • Strong: "How I Taught My Grandfather to Use a Computer."
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Supplemental Prompts

Challenges and Circumstances (250-word limit)

"Please describe the challenges or circumstances and how they have impacted you."

Challenges and Circumstances Essay Q&A Slides

Q: Which challenge should I choose?

A:

  • Select a specific event.
  • Avoid general moods.
  • Focus on your actions, not blame.
  • Weak: "I had a difficult family life."
  • Strong: "I became my siblings' primary caregiver."
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Additional Information (300-word limit)This section is for any extra details you feel are essential to your application but don't fit anywhere else. Use this space for brief, important context.

Additional Information Essay Q&A Slides

Q: What is this section's function?

A:

  • Provide context for data.
  • Explain anomalies in your file.
  • Clarify unique circumstances.
  • This is not Essay #2.
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All the best!

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