After years of working with students on their college essays, certain patterns emerge. Not the good kind — the kind that makes us wince a little on the inside while remaining mostly calm and encouraging on the outside.

In the spirit of helping your student avoid the most common pitfalls, here’s an honest rundown of what we see again and again, and what to do instead.

Mistake #1: Starting with the Prompt

We know. The Common Application has prompts. They’re right there, staring at your student. It seems logical to begin there.

It isn’t.

Students who dive straight into a prompt almost always end up with an essay that answers the prompt rather than one that reveals who they are. Those are very different things, and admissions officers can tell the difference immediately.

The essay isn’t a creative writing assignment. It’s not a five-paragraph essay. It’s not a research paper. It’s a chance for an admissions officer — who is reading hundreds of these things, possibly while eating a sad desk lunch — to look up from the pile and think, “I get this kid.”

That kind of essay starts with self-discovery, not with the prompt. Before a student writes a single word, they need to spend real time asking themselves questions that have nothing to do with college admissions: What do I daydream about? What do my friends admire about me that I take for granted? What’s something I worked hard at, even when I failed? The answers to those questions are where the essay actually lives.

The prompt can come later. It’s usually more flexible than students think — most strong essays can work for multiple prompts.

Mistake #2: Writing a Highlight Reel Instead of a Story

“I’ve been passionate about soccer since I was five years old. Soccer has taught me teamwork, dedication, and perseverance. Last year, we won the regional championship…”

We’ve read this essay. A lot.

The activities list already tells admissions officers what a student has done. The essay is not the place to repeat that information in paragraph form. One well-told story is worth infinitely more than a tour through a student’s greatest hits.

The best essays zoom in. They pick a single moment — a pivot point, a quiet realization, a small thing that turned out to be a big thing — and let it do the heavy lifting. Maybe it’s the conversation at practice, not the championship. Maybe it’s the third failed attempt, not the eventual success.

Small and specific almost always beats big and impressive.

Mistake #3: Choosing a Topic Because It Sounds Good

Students (and, let’s be real, their parents) sometimes gravitate toward topics that seem impressive: the service trip abroad, the leadership role in student government, the cancer diagnosis they faced with maturity beyond their years.

Here’s the truth: the topic itself is almost never the problem or the solution. A student can write a riveting essay about fossilized shark teeth they collect on weekend beach walks. Another student can write a forgettable essay about rebuilding homes in Guatemala.

What matters is the reflection. What does the story reveal about how the student thinks, what they value, and who they’re becoming? That’s what admissions officers are actually reading for.

If a student is bored by their own topic, imagine how the admissions officer feels. The right topic is the one the student is genuinely excited to share — the story they actually want to tell.

Mistake #4: Telling Instead of Showing

“I am a resilient person who never gives up.”

No. Stop. Delete.

Colleges value resilience, curiosity, empathy, creativity, and hard work. But a student cannot simply announce that they possess these qualities. They have to demonstrate them through the story they tell. The best essays show personal strengths without ever naming them outright.

“I am resilient” is an outcome statement. Describing the three times you failed your driver’s test, what you learned about your own stubbornness, and the moment something finally clicked — that’s showing resilience, and it’s also a story someone might actually want to read.

Mistake #5: Trying to Sound Impressive Instead of Real

Five-syllable words. Lofty proclamations about the state of humanity. Sentences that sound like they were written by someone’s very ambitious older sibling.

We see this constantly, and it almost always backfires. Admissions officers are experienced readers. They know immediately when an essay sounds like a student and when it sounds like a performance.

A useful test: read the essay out loud. Does it sound like something the student would actually say? If not, it needs work. The goal is to write something that makes an admissions officer think “I get this kid” — not “this kid is trying very hard to impress me.”

Authentic and direct beats fancy every time

Mistake #6: Stopping at the First Draft

We have never read a first draft that didn’t need work. Never. Not once.

Revision isn’t a sign that something went wrong — it’s where the real writing happens. The first draft gets the story out. Revision is where a student figures out what they’re actually trying to say.

A few things we ask students to do with every revision: read the essay aloud (this catches awkward phrasing faster than any other method), ask whether the opening line makes a reader want to keep going, and check that the ending doesn’t just summarize what already happened but leaves the reader with something to think about.

Three full drafts is a reasonable minimum. The essay you’re proud of is rarely the first one.

The Bigger Picture

There’s a lot of pressure on this essay, and we want to be honest with you: it will not write your student into a school they’re otherwise not qualified for. What it can do is keep a strong student in the admit pile — or, if it’s a bad essay, bump them into the denial pile. We tell families this upfront, not to add pressure, but to take some off. The goal is a good essay, not a perfect one.

A good essay is authentic, specific, and in the student’s own voice. It reveals something real about who they are. It demonstrates personal strengths through a story without announcing them. And it sounds like a human being wrote it — a particular, interesting human being who would be a good addition to a college campus.

That’s all. Write that essay. Then revise it a couple of times. Then you’re done.

The best essays start long before senior fall. Download our Calm College Prep Timeline to stay ahead.