College Essay Brainstorm

This app will give you thought provoking questions for the Common Application questions. It will also give you 20+ Brainstorming Activities that are designed with college application essays in mind.

Each activity will get you thinking about things in your life, whether it is a weird habit or article of clothing you wear everyday, that you didn’t think college admissions officers would find interesting and want to read about.

The two hardest parts about writing your college application essay are your topic and getting started. The application essay question will give you a question or topic but what will you write about?

Many people waste a lot of time mulling over what to write about when the best thing they can do is to just start getting words on paper.

Simple brainstorming activities can help you do that and will help jumpstart your creativity.

How This App Works:

• Select which Common Application prompt you like or choose an activity from the “Other Brainstorming Activities” section.

• You will be then shown some questions or prompts, which will jumpstart your brain and ask you for very specific and detailed answers about the activity, topic, or prompt.

• Once you read through the sample questions, you will be able to choose how you want to record your answers.

• You can use traditional “pen & paper” (a laptop or a whiteboard are also fine for this).

• Or you can choose the “notepad” function and the keyboard and text box will appear.

• When the timer starts, write down (or type) whatever words or phrases pop into your head.

• Go Quickly! Sometimes the best ideas pop into your head when you are under the pressure of time.

• Be very specific and detailed in your description. Write down the sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and tastes about whatever the topic is. Nothing is off limits!

• If you use the “notepad” function then your answers will be recorded in your “My Activities” section. If you use the "Pen & Paper" function you can take a photo of your work and email it to yourself or somebody else, maybe someone that can add something of value to your ideas.

• You will then have some great ideas for your college application essay. You can use those words or phrases to create simple sentences and paragraphs, which will get you on your way to a first draft college application essay.

• You can also tell others that you used the College Application Essay Brainstorming App by posting via Twitter & Facebook. Your work will NOT be shown to them if you post on social media (unless you post it separately on your own).

You might not consider yourself a great writer but the purpose of the college application essay is not to find the fabulous writers. It is designed to find out what is behind the GPA and standardized test scores of the applicant.

Start small. Then make it awesome!