College Essay FAQs: Parent Edition

Essays are becoming an increasingly important part of the college application process. Essays are an opportunity to demonstrate personal skills that can differentiate students from their peers with top grades and test scores. Knowing the importance of application essay can result in students and families feeling uneasy, so here are a few FAQs and answers to help alleviate some of that stress: 

Q: When should my student start writing their college essays? 

A: Students should start writing college essays during the summer before senior year. Beginning during the summer allows students to engage in thoughtful reflection that is quintessential to the college application essay process. 

Students should start with their main application essay. We usually encourage students to finish this essay during the summer months to have enough time to work on their school work and supplemental essays during the school year. 

Q: How involved should I, as a parent, be in the writing process with my student? 

A: This depends on the student, but parents often make great final readers on their students’ application essays. However, parents add stress when part of the iterative writing process. Still, they know their student and their student’s voice very well, which can make them the perfect choice to take a last look at the essay before submission. 

Q: My student needs help to identify an essay topic. What makes for a good essay topic?  

A: Students have a lot of freedom in choosing topics for their essays, particularly the primary application essay, which can be overwhelming. Suppose your student needs help identifying what they want to write their essay about. In that case, it can be helpful to discuss what experiences they value, their extracurricular involvement, impactful/meaningful experiences, etc. Having these broad conversations with your students may spark a topic idea for them!  

Q: How many essays should my student expect to write?

A: A lot. Remember when I said to start over the summer? The number of essays a student will have to write varies because it depends on which schools the student applies to and the total number of schools to which they submit applications. Many schools now require supplemental essays. These supplemental essays are often shorter than the main application essay, but, on average, a student should expect to write 20-25 application essays.

Q: Can my student write several essays on the same topic?

A: Yes and no. It can be helpful to think of each essay as an opportunity for an admissions officer to learn more about your student. For this reason, we often encourage students to write essays that they will submit to the same institution about different activities or experiences. 

However, if a student is heavily involved in a minimal number of activities, writing more than one essay for the same institution on the same topic is possible. The caveat is that providing a fresh perspective on that activity is vital so that the admissions officer is still learning more about what the student has to offer. 

To help parents and students, we have a recorded webinar and a series of summer essay workshops. 

Watch the webinar

Stay up to date on the workshops