Tips for the Common App Prompts for 2025 - 2026.

Okay, it's been a long time since I've updated my site. Here's a new blog about my ideas for the Common App prompts for the 2025 - 2026 academic year. I've copied the webpage where the Common App people have introduced the Common App prompts for 2025 - 2026. They're the same as they have been for a few previous years, which was roughly what I expected. I've added my comments in different colors (red, green, and purple). 

I hope these help - let me know what you think!

We are happy to announce that the Common App essay prompts will remain the same for 2025–2026. 🎉
Based on positive feedback from students, counselors, teachers, and colleges, we've decided to keep the essay prompts unchanged. We will continue to explore trends in prompt selection across different student populations and use those insights to inform future updates.
Students will see two changes to the optional “Additional information” questions as of August 1, 2025.

• The current “Community disruption” question will be updated to a “Challenges and circumstances” question. The new question language will expand to capture a broader range of impacts students may experience. The word/character limit will remain the same (first-year app 250 words max, transfer app 1250 characters max).
• The “Additional information” question word/character limit will be reduced. The first-year app limit will be reduced from 650 to 300 words max. The transfer app limit will be reduced from 3500 to 1500 characters max.

We are making these changes after conducting listening sessions and consulting with our member, counselor, and student advisory committees to ensure we gather diverse perspectives and input. Students in the first-year app who have text in their “Additional information” question that exceeds the reduced word count limit after August 1 will see an error message alert letting them know they have exceeded the new max. They will not lose anything they have written prior to August 1, but they will need to go back and adjust their response. In the transfer app, student responses to the “Additional information” question prior to August 1 will not roll over.
Here is the full set of essay prompts for 2025–2026.

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.

Your answer to Prompt 6 should be helpful for this – what is your favorite interest, academic, social, athletic, etc.?
Also: What achievement of yours makes you the most proud?
Also: Practically all people have more than one aspect to their identities. Practically everyone has an aspect of his or her identity of which they are particularly proud or find the most important to them. Describe the most important aspects of your identity.   You may see yourself as a scholar and an athlete, a philosopher, a philanthropist, a theologian, a patriot, a family person, an entertainer, or something else. Your experiences as a child, as a member of your race, sex, or any other classification, may have led you to have experiences that most other people haven’t. These classifications don’t have to be the normal classifications of race, gender, religion, etc, that we see in diversity/nondiscrimination statements. For example, if you’re a “little person,” or someone who’s really tall, you may literally have a different perspective on life. Tell the admissions people about it.

     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?

As I’ve noted before – “Diversity and adversity get a student into the university.” Diversity is already discussed in number 1, and also in the section on student challenges below. Adversity can be the result of discrimination, but does not have to be, and since diversity is discussed elsewhere, we can focus on other adversity.

Moving “up from adversity” is an ancient, classic tale that will help you gain admission to the college of your choice if you have a good story about adversity you’ve faced, and if you tell the story well.
Think about a school subject, athletic ability, or any life skill at all,  at which you did not excel. How did you get better at it? If you couldn’t get better at it, what did you do instead? Sometimes you must avoid an obstacle instead of attacking that obstacle head-on. While a story about how you worked into the wee hours of the morning to conquer calculus is wonderful, a humble admission that you couldn’t complete some other course, no matter how hard you tried and how much help you received, can also show maturity.
It’s important to know when to give up.  Something like “I realized I’d never be very good at lab work and dissections, so I decided seeking a career in medicine wasn’t for me, and concentrated on obtaining the best humanities education I could, obtaining a 4.0 GPA in English, French, and U.S. and European history.”

You can also discuss any kind of hobby or project on which you have worked. Perhaps you created a video or film, or produced a play. You probably had a truly limited budget for your production. How did you do it? Homemade props made from free objects? Writing the film script so things that would otherwise require Hollywood-style CGI to would be implied but not seen? Repurposing old videos and films?

Did you help develop new plays for your football team? Did you help change an unfair school rule or a local ordinance? Those things aren’t easy, especially when you’re up against opposition or even just simple inertia, traditionalism, etc. If you’re the kind of person who chafes at hearing “But we’ve always done it this way!”, this is the question for you.

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

Literally anything you have read, heard, or thought can work here. Did you become a libertarian after reading Atlas Shrugged? Did you become very concerned about totalitarianism after reading 1984? Did reading ancient Greek philosophy or Shakespeare cause you to change your viewpoints?  

You don’t have to have “read the classics” to have an opinion on important ideas. Did watching the Black Mirror series on Netflix make you question the ethics and safety of certain computer technologies? Did watching The Simpsons or South Park make you question literally any aspect of North American culture? Did Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul cause you to have any questions? Have current events made you question anything at all?

4. 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?

This one is exactly what you probably already think it is. Think “Pay it forward.” How did someone’s surprising generosity, support, friendship, etc. help you? Have you used the memory of your happiness or gratitude in your life since that time? How? Did that that inspire you to help others? How?

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

Have you grown up, matured, etc. in any way besides physically since you were a little child? Have you developed physically because of physical training? Tell the admissions officials about it.
Teamwork, discipline, self-knowledge, introspection, and similar ways of reaching personal, educational, or professional goals are wonderful. Understanding when you were wrong, admitting it, and making things better are all pathways to spiritual growth, and make people like you more. Thinking about problems and discussing them with trusted friends will help you advance in every way.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time.

Think about what you would do if you could spend all your time doing anything you wanted, with no issues with money, responsibilities, or similar things. What have you done to reach that goal?

Why does it captivate you?

What makes that subject so wonderful? Does it challenge you in a way find appealing? Are you trying to solve problems? Entertain yourself and others? Are you just curious about things in general, and this seems like something worth knowing?

 What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Discuss teachers, parents, classmates, employers, coaches, religious leaders, Scout leaders, or anyone else who helps you learn about this topic. Discuss books, videos, films, podcasts, or any other media you have used to teach yourself about the topic. Who or what did you find most helpful? Who or what did you find really unhelpful? Why?

7. 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.

This is like the “free space” on a bingo card. Is there literally anything you find important or of which you are proud? Can you edit an essay you’ve written down to the space requirements? Do it.

This is the updated “Challenges and circumstances” question language students will see beginning August 1, 2025


Sometimes a student’s application and achievements may be impacted by challenges or other circumstances. This could involve:

• Access to a safe and quiet study space

Are you homeless or housing-insecure (i.e., you don’t have a permanent address, are moving around with your family, etc.)? Can’t use a library, etc? Are you, of have you been, missing something that most students take for granted when studying?
Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened?

Believe it or not, elite colleges and universities are often better at providing for very financially challenged students than even very low-cost state colleges and universities.  It should be obvious that most, if not all, colleges and universities can help students find quiet and safe study spaces.

• Access to reliable technology and internet

These days, not having reliable Internet is what not having a phone was like back in the early 1990s and before. Have you had to use a public library that’s not open many hours? A coffee shop with free Wi-Fi, but limited hours, or that won't let you stay without purchasing something, or is just too loud (see the previous question)? That is a hardship. While it's not earth-shattering, it does require you to be creative and improvise solutions or "work-arounds" to meet your needs. 

Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened?

It should be obvious that most, if not all, colleges and universities can help students find Wi-Fi - it's usually all over campus.

• Community disruption (violence, protests, teacher strikes, etc.)

In these days of National Guard and ICE deployments in “war-torn” US cities such as Chicago, Portland, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and possibly other cities in the future, and protests against such actions, it is important to note to admissions officers if you were affected by those actions? Were you not able to attend school or unable to use a public library because of military or quasi-military actions near your home? Did teacher strikes in the district in which you attend school keep you out of school, or provide you with inadequate substitute teachers? Did you miss SAT. ACT, or similar test days for similar reasons?
Were you a victim of violence (crime, protests, etc.?

Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened?

• Discrimination

Have you been illegally and/or unfairly treated poorly in school, in your neighborhood, at your job, or in any other situation, such as housing, restaurants, gym facilities, because of your race, sex, or other physical characteristic, your appearance, your sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, or the like?

 Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened?

Generally, most, if not all, colleges and universities can help students find resources and safety for minority students.

• Family disruptions (divorce, incarceration, job loss, health, loss of a family member, addiction, etc.)

Have you or a family member suffered from incapacitating illness, including addition to a substance or activity, divorce, imprisonment, unemployment or other loss of income, that caused you to have to focus on your or the family’s member’s illness? Did one of your family members die? This will probably tie in to the “Family or other obligations” bullet point, immediately below.
 
Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened? Is this problem likely to cause problems for you and/or your family in the future? How are you and your family addressing this problem (e.g., health treatment, participation in recovery programs for addiction, seeking and finding employment or self-employment, etc.)
 
Believe it or not, elite colleges and universities are often better at providing for very financially challenged students than even very low-cost state colleges and universities. Practically every year, a university like Harvard admits someone who grew up working on a subsistence farm - one of my classmates from Williams literally grew up on a pig farm and got financial aid package. 

• Family or other obligations (care-taking, financial support, etc.)

This is probably from one of the things listed in the bullet point immediately above.  How have you and your family dealt with sickness, addition, divorce, imprisonment, death of a family member?
 
Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened? Is this problem likely to be a problem for you when you attend college? What would make that better for you? Believe it or not, elite colleges and universities are often better at providing for very financially challenged students than even very low-cost state colleges and universities.

• Housing instability, displacement, or homelessness

 
Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened? Is this problem likely to be a problem for you when you attend college? What would make that better for you?
 
Many colleges and universities can help students find living spaces.

• Military deployment or activation

Who in your family was deployed or activated? How did that affect you and your family?
 
Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened?

• Natural disasters

Who in your family was affected? How did that affect you and your family?
Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened? Will you need any kind of accommodation for any such health problem when you attend college?

• Physical health and mental well-being

This ties into the two bullet points immediately above. Have you suffered a mental or physical illness, or just experienced more stress than most people your age in this country normally do?

Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened? Will you need any kind of accommodation for any such health problem when you attend college?
 
This one is IMPORTANT. If you haven’t been officially diagnosed with a problem, please get a diagnosis from a competent health care provider, and coordinate your treatment and diagnosis with the school you attend. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to get accommodations for standardized tests without providing proof to the test companies (e.g., the College Board and American College Testing – the SAT and ACT people) without providing them the information they need from you far in advance of the test date you want.

• War, conflict, or other hardships

Did it make it harder for you to study and participate in school activities, work, or something similar? Did you overcome these problems? If so, how? If not, what happened?
 
If you’re comfortable sharing, this information can help colleges better understand the context of your application. Colleges may use this information to provide you and your fellow students with support and resources.
Would you like to share any details about challenges or other circumstances you’ve experienced?*
(   ) Yes [If you have a problem, hardship, etc., tell the admissions people about it. It’s the best way to make sure you get the consideration you deserve, and should help you determine what schools are right for you. I’m not saying any college would reject you because you have had some problems beyond your control, but some are probably better-equipped to handle your problems than others.]
(   ) No
Please describe the challenges or circumstances and how they have impacted you.
See above, right by the "Yes" checkmark space.

While some schools are beginning discussions with juniors and transfer students about college options, it's important to clarify that this doesn't mean students need to start writing their essays right away. By releasing the prompts early, we hope to give students ample time for reflection and brainstorming. As you guide students with their planning, feel free to use our essay writing resource, available in both English and Spanish, and our video tutorial breaking down each essay prompt.
For students who wish to start exploring the application process, creating a Common App account before August 1 ensures that all their responses, including their personal essay, will be retained through account rollover.