The US application generally consists of the Common Application essay which is sent to all schools you apply to through the Common Application, the school-specific supplementary essays, a short write up of 5 academic honours, 10 activities and 3 teacher recommendations.
*Note: some schools are not on the Common App and have their own application system (UC schools use the UC portal, and MIT uses its own), so you will have to apply separately for those schools!
The application is to help schools get a sense of who you are as an individual, and what you’ve done in all areas of your secondary school (Year 3 and Year 4) and junior college or polytechnic experience, be it community service, student leadership, sports, academics or even outside of school. You should aim to distinguish yourself through your application, show that you know the school and the opportunities they offer, and are a good “fit” for it.
What is “fit”
“Fit” is basically the idea that schools are looking not just for the most accomplished students, but the students whose interests and outlooks cohere best with the school's vision and mission. Hence there is no one “best” applicant for the US system - it really depends on what each school is looking for, and how distinct you are from the rest of that year’s applicant profile.
You can figure out what each school is looking for by reading their official website - look at the school’s ‘About Us’ page, and sometimes schools even explicitly say what they are looking for in an applicant on their applications page (e.g. some page like ‘What We Look For’). For instance, the Stanford application page fronts with the line “The primary criterion for admission to Stanford is academic excellence” while the Mount Holyoke profile of its students reads “Mount Holyoke College students are passionate about learning — and about who they want to be. They tend to be more self-aware, more adventurous, more confident, more idealistic, more globally aware and more accomplished than your average college undergrad.”
The process of researching if you are a good fit for a school is as much a process of figuring out what the chances are that the school will admit you, and it is also you figuring out if you would enjoy being at that school. So if what you are reading on the school website doesn’t sound appealing to you, it’s a sign that you might want to reconsider applying.
How to Write Your Common App (and Supplementary) Essays
Note: While not all universities use the Common App, the following tips are for essays in general.
Format
For most universities, you will have to write one Common App essay which will be submitted to all universities you apply to (thus, "common"). The word limit is 650 words.
Then, some universities may require more Supplementary Essays, which are university-specific. These may be 100-200 words long. Typically Supplementary Essays may include some form of "Why our university?" or "Why this major?" or strange questions like “What can actually be divided by zero?” (University of Chicago Applications 2020).
Tips
The point of the essays is to reveal bits about yourself that are not captured in your honors or activities (which is a lot!) such as your motivation, your background, and basically whatever is important to you.
The way to think about your US application is to think about creating a human. A human is a multi-dimensional being. For example, you are not just a one-dimensional "science student" or "a history buff." You are many things. You are shaped by your family history, your living environment, your friends, your identity, certain moments in your life, random media that you consume, etc.
Imagine you are talking to a stranger. What would you say to them to make them understand you as a person? What are the things without which you will not be who you are? Just like when you are talking to a stranger, you are NOT trying to impress them. You are NOT trying to impress them. I repeat, you are NOT trying to impress them.
It might sound counterintuitive but it is important to break out of the mindset where you try to fulfill a checklist or satisfy certain rubrics. Nobody can determine how worthy you are as a human being. You can only try to show them earnestly what you make sense of yourself and your life so far. That is the special quality of US applications. You are trying to be a human being. The "impressing" is already done in your honors, activities and grades.
Usually universities write that the essay is supposed to reveal your “personal voice.” It might be hard to understand what this exactly means. A good way to think about “personal” is to realize that you are a unique human being (and you 100% are unique, even if you think you have a very ordinary life. You can live an ordinary life, but nobody has quite lived this ordinary life like you have). A good rule of thumb is to “write what only you can write.” If it sounds like something someone else can write, see how you can bring more of yourself into it. It does not mean you have to sound super weird or quirky, sometimes it can just be a thoughtful angle at which you look at things. Another good tip for this is to not write the things you think you should write. Write the things that you would write.
Writing the personal essay will definitely be a long and (sometimes painful) introspective process. However, it is arguably one of the gems of the US application, because it can be deeply meaningful in self-development and reflection.
Here are some more tips from seniors who have gone through the process.
"Start writing early. It is normal to scrap drafts and keep rewriting.
Writing US application essays is very unlike other kinds of formal academic writing we do, and even other application essays. These essays need you to articulate insightful things about who you are, what you want to study and why in a succinct, coherent and impressive manner. So factor in time not just for the writing and editing, but for all the research and brainstorming that needs to go into this. You got this!
In the words of Vanessa from the WahTeam: “Heh. Just start early lah.”
"Write 20 things about yourself before looking at the essay prompts. This is helpful for you to introspect without being restricted by the prompts. Do not treat the essays like exam questions. It is fine if your essay is only tangentially related to the prompt. This is not a school essay. They just want to know you better, and the prompts are only to prompt you towards that end. In fact, it is sometimes not even unusual for them to ask you to make your own prompt. They just want to know you better."
"Be sincere."
How to frame your 5 academic honours + 10 activities
5 Academic Honours
In choosing which 5 honours you want to mention, you should think about what academic awards or scholarships you have received since Year 3 in Secondary School. “Academic” can be interpreted widely, and can include awards for community service, publications of your writings and so on.
You will only be given 100 characters, so brevity is your friend. From the get-go, state the honour. Abbreviations are okay, but only if it is widely known - e.g. Model UN for Model United Nations is fine; but probably not SYLA for SAF Young Leader Award. Given the character constraint, it is also alright if you use phrases instead of full sentences. In the phrases used, try to quantify your award - for instance, awarded to the top 1% of students as opposed to merely stating that it is awarded to top students. This helps the admissions officer understand the context of your awards better.
In listing the 5 honours, it would also be good to rank them from the most impressive to the least.
10 Activities
You can mention anything that you have done outside of academics, such as your extracurricular activities, part-time jobs, research opportunities or hobbies. Similar to the 5 academic honours, the character count for this section is also limited (150 only!) so you should use phrases instead of full sentences to describe what you’ve done or accomplished within those activities. Try to use the active voice and remember to quantify what you’ve done if the activity permits (e.g. “raised $1,000 for a charity”), as this really helps contextualise your achievements to admissions officers.
More important when it comes to these 10 activities is how you should rank them. When an admissions officer is reading through the activities that you have listed, they are trying to see what you are like as a person. It would hence be easier for reading if you grouped your activities together when they share a common theme. For instance, if you held two leadership positions, you would list them one after the other, so it shows consistency in your abilities, before transitioning to describing other activities you have participated in (e.g. community services / performing arts / sports).
Who can help me?
Writing this many essays which require considerable amounts of research and personal introspection can definitely be daunting. But with adequate preparation, a good essay is achievable and you don’t have to do it alone. There are entire websites and services that can help you in writing the application. We have listed a few of our top picks below.
1. CollegeVine
With a free account, you get access to a peer review for your essays. You have to review another account’s essay and in turn, you can submit your essay for review. (https://www.collegevine.com/apply/essay-editing/) They also have other useful tools and articles that help you unpack both the Common App essay prompts and individual school’s essay questions (look under the section “How to Write the XXX University Essays YYYY - YYYY”)
2. EducationUSA
The WahUniversity team highly recommends this service as it is high quality and free, because they are sponsored directly by the US Government.
The counselor there is a very nice lady, though she can be very busy. She is very experienced and will help you with your essays and also share insights about US universities you may not find elsewhere!
You can make an appointment for a one-on-one session, or you can attend their events
3. Crimson Education
While Crimson Education is a paid service, they have a free consultation with their higher education counsellors which can be helpful in offering another perspective. They might try to sell you their programme, but don’t feel pressured to hire consultants to help you with your college applications. Just make use of the freebie ;)
4. Others
Make use of free resources like college guidance channels on Youtube and webinars hosted by colleges themselves. If you have additional queries that are specific to your situation, feel free to write to your target colleges through email; they are generally pretty responsive and are more than willing to answer your questions.
Final Tips
The main thing to take note is that US universities are generally much more decentralised than UK and SG universities, hence it is important to understand the niches of each individual university you’re applying to. Make sure you read through the admission policies of each school - for e.g, some are test-optional while some are not. In terms of financial aid, some are need-blind, while others are need-aware (this is covered more comprehensively under the “Funding” article). For those in NS, some universities (like the UCs) generally do not allow deferment, while others allow deferment of up to 2 years.
For A Level kids, we would also caution against trying to leave everything to after exams. Depending on the number of schools, it can be extremely rushed. After As, you’ll probably want time to decompress and your year(s) of sleep debt may come back for you.
Refer to this timeline for a brief overview of the process:
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