Think of your “best experiences” before you start answering any of these prompts.

College essays are tools that serve a specific purpose — admissions officers use them to see if you’ll be successful at college and beyond. 

As you’ll learn by walking through our free brainstorming materials in our dashboard (first create a free account), Prompt’s method is to begin by spending time writing down all the experiences you’ve had in high school — thinking broadly of everything you’ve done academically, extracurricularly, with your family, at a job, over the summer, and independently. 

Your experiences will form the basis of your essays. As you develop your answers, start thinking about which of The 5 Traits That Colleges Look For each experience demonstrates in you. The traits are: 

• Drive 
• Initiative 
• Intellectual Curiosity 
• Contribution 
• Diversity of Experiences. 

The more you write with the traits in mind, the better you’ll understand what details will impress your admissions officers, and what details don’t add value. By the end of this process, you should have a lot of compellng information to share. 

Next, take the best experiences you’ve come up with — the ones that most exemplify one (or more) of the five traits – and slate them in your three Georgetown slots:

1. Indicate any special talents or skills you possess. (250 words)
2. Briefly discuss the significance to you of the school or summer activity in which you have been most involved. (approximately 1/2 page, single-spaced) 
3. As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you. (approximately 1 page, single-spaced)

‍We’ll tackle each below. 

Don’t take our examples too seriously — there are many “right” ways to answer Georgetown’s prompts.

Quick interruption: at Prompt, we’re against modeling yourself on influencers, New York Times college essay writers, and, really, anyone who isn’t you.

On the other hand, we know that you want concrete examples of what our brilliant but (we’ll admit it) abstract advice can actually look like in practice. So, we’re illustrating with some made-up examples.

Please read them with a big grain of salt. You can have a different writing style. You can go a million other directions. And if the example sounds too impressive, it just might be — our examples are generally loosely based on real examples, but still fictional. You’re working with reality, and that tends to be harder.

With that caveat out of the way, back to our regularly scheduled programming. 

Q1 — Tackle the “talent” question last, amplifying a trait you want to emphasize in your application.

The prompt is:

Indicate any special talents or skills you possess. (250 words)

How to ace it:

• Write it last so that you make sure it complements and amplifies the rest of your application.
• Choose just one talent/skill to discuss. 
• Illustrate your talent/skill with concrete examples of how you developed and/or use those skills. 

What not to do:

• Don’t focus your answer on how much you “love” the talent/skill that you have — you might “love” playing soccer or singing, but that doesn’t say much to the admissions team. They want to know how those talents will translate into a successful college career.

Example:

My talent is to win people over. Both my parents and my sister are introverts. So I grew up thinking that you should be to-the-point, business-like, even curt with other people. I realized I could be my “true” self reading about Dolly Parton, and how she loves winning people over, as individuals. I thought: I want to do that, too. I just didn’t know it was allowed!

Today, I find that I can use my talent to make interactions out in the real world more pleasant — whether it’s with a surly waiter (my favorite type of person to win over), or a source for one of my newspaper stories over the phone (finding all the ways to reassure them that the article will work with them, not against them; making sure they feel comfortable enough to share truly interesting stories), or even a potentially negative encounter, like the time a TSA officer upset my mom by questioning her about what were actually star-shaped brass candle-stick holders in her luggage (apparently, they looked like nunchucks). In that instance, I was able to calm my mother down by talking with the officer in a calm, pleasant way, diffusing a tense situation, and by the end even making some light jokes, to show that the whole incident was just an understandable misunderstanding. 

Notes:

• This essay shows contribution — the ability to help the family with this people skills — as well as initiative — the student’s decision to diffuse a difficult situation.
• It would be even better to tie the essay into some academic, extracurricular or work-related wins, showing how this talent propels the student forward. (There’s room in the word count of this example).
• In the last part, the essay is super-specific about what the student did in a difficult situation.

Q2 — Choose your “activity” based on length of commitment, awards/leadership, and whether it’s unique or interesting. 

The question is:

Briefly discuss the significance to you of the school or summer activity in which you have been most involved. (approximately 1/2 page, single-spaced) 

Note: A single-spaced half page is about 250 words. 

First of all, take a look at our comprehensive “How to Write a Great Describe an Activity Essay” article, because we cover how to approach these in detail. 

‍Once you’ve done that, it’s time to choose the activity to focus on:

• As we said with Q1, it’s best to wait here — start with your personal essay (next question below).
• Put your absolute “best experiences” from the list you brainstormed into your personal statement. If those experiences happen to concern an activity, well, they tend to make for excellent personal statements. Use those experiences in your personal essay.
• If you wrote your personal essay about the activity you’ve been “most involved” with, you can either use this essay to expand upon that — focusing in particular on its “significance to you” — or you can fudge things just a little and write about another activity with which you’ve also been deeply involved.
• Remember that a job can be an “activity” (and make for an excellent essay).

‍Finally, in order of importance, here are the four criteria you should use in deciding which activity to choose:

1. Length of time involved — the question itself says “most involved,” so take that seriously. (Of course!)
2. The five traits — you want to choose an activity in which you showed off one or more of the traits.
3. Awards & Leadership — these mean outside people validated your talent or skill, and they go a long way toward impressing admissions.
4. Unique or interesting — Do you know how many “Debate Club” essays an admissions officer reads in a year? Probably in the trillions. While you can absolutely knock it out of the park writing a great essay about a well-worn activity, if you have something more unusual and interesting, you’re going to stand out in a good way. (Note: This is a nice-to-have element. The threww above criteria are more important than “uniqueness.”)

Once you’ve chosen your activity, write it up with:

• a strong emphasis on the actions you took or how you grew, and
• many concrete examples. 

Example: 

I started working for the local hardware store to earn a little extra cash. I had no idea it would improve my skills in so many aspects of my life. 

First, it got me out of my shell. I went from intimidated when asked where an item was, to realizing that I can actually help grownups! I can solve their problems and they’ll be grateful. 

‍Second, it’s shown me how less-than-perfect solutions are often the best ones. As a math-lover, I’ve had an aversion to “imperfect” things. I wanted the store to add a social media account; my boss patiently asked who would do it, how much time would it take, what would it add? (Answer: me, too much, and not much.) Recently, when I went on YouTube to learn how to fix the store’s air conditioner (and did it!) instead of calling the repair service, I realized I’d absorbed the lesson: optimize what you have. 

These lessons have helped me think more creatively in all aspects of life. For example, in my favorite subject, Math. As I was working on a problem set, I realized I could struggle through some not-that-hard problems, or put them aside to work on a really tricky problem that the teacher hadn’t assigned. I had the courage, now, to ask my teacher if I could try it: she agreed. Wrestling that problem to the ground was so hard but so rewarding — something I’d never have thought to tackle before my “real world” experiences. 

Notes:

• The essay focuses on the many ways the job has helped the student to improve their skills.
• The essay ties to intellectual curiosity in the final paragraph about math.
• The essay also showcases drive and initiative to get things done in the store, as well as contribution, by being helpful to clients. 

Q3 — Start with the “personal statement,” center it on your best experiences, and get a lot of feedback for clarity. 

The question is:

As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you. (approximately 1 page, single-spaced)

Note: A single-spaced half page is about 500 words. 

‍As essay coaches, we know what makes for a knock-out personal statement. And it’s … a huge topic that deserves its own article. That article is here, and we strongly urge that you head over to read it now. 

A few things to note if you don’t head over immediately (which you should):

• Do not fall for the “we’d like to know more about you” trap. It’s a trap. 
• This is the place to use your experiences that best exemplify the 5 traits.
• If you need a boost, we’ll share that writing a strong essay (as opposed to what most students write) can increase your chances of getting into selective colleges by 10x, colleges like Georgetown.

So, once again, here’s where we wrote everything you need to know about writing a great personal statement. (Yes, it’s for the Common App, but it will all stand you in excellent stead for this question, too. And recycling is as good for the planet as it is for college applications.)

Helpful info on all the “other” stuff you’ll consider as you apply to Georgetown (and other schools).

• Activities list: here’s how to write your activities so they really impress. 
• Applying early or regular: Georgetown offers “Early Action” as well as “Regular Decision.” Read our guide to early/regular decisions — it's a great overview of this decision at any school.  
• Note: Georgetown is not test-optional. 

BTW, here’s our guidance for approaching any college supplement + here’s where you can find our guides for almost every college’s supplements. 

‍Feeling inspired? A great place to start is at our College Essay Help Center. 

More articles on Prompt.com’s admissions-boosting methods:

• Work with a college essay coach
• Strong essays increase your chance of admission by up to 10x
• Don’t let influencers influence your college essays
• Should I apply test-optional?
• Early admissions: Everything you need to know
• College Essay Help Center