“Hey, can you write a new post for the blog?”

“Sure any idea of what we should write about?”

“I think we need to do one on form and the common app essay.”

“On form?”

“Yeah about how good common app essays break form.”

“Of course! I will work on one about how breaking form can make a really memorable reading experience.”

If you have read our blog before, you know that this is not usually how we start our posts. Today it made sense because this blog post is all about breaking form. Starting with dialogue is a break from the form that we usually use. So many students want a “template” for a college admission essay—but we’re here to tell you that the surest way to bore an audience is to follow a template for this essay. Instead, you should try breaking form. 

Let’s say you are getting ready to write your essay. You have already brainstormed some characteristics you want to showcase. You are caring and thoughtful. You have a story that you want to use to demonstrate those characteristics: you making food for your friends on hang-out nights. Now it’s time to talk about how to write that story so it’s engaging and eye-catching, which all comes down to form. 

In this post, you will learn all about why it’s important to break form when writing a common app essay. We also have a second post on how to break form. 

Breaking form can be a hard subject to grasp. It’s important to know what form is. Form is just a fancy writing word for the structure of what you are writing. Every type of writing has a traditional form. For a novel, it’s starting at the beginning and ending at the end. But not all novels do that. Some of the most interesting ones start at the end and then flashback to the beginning. That breaks the form. Think about all the essays you have written up to this point. Most likely there are usually 5 paragraphs. They have a thesis, usually at the end of the first paragraph. This is the first type of essay that gets taught to most students. Whatever you do for your common app essay, it needs to break this form. 

Break up with the 5 Paragraph Essay

Because the 5 paragraph essay is the type of essay students are most familiar with, many tend to use that structure to write their common app essay. There are a couple of issues we take with this. 

The 5 paragraph essay works best when it’s trying to prove a point--it is inherently argumentative. Think of the essays you have written for class, maybe you are trying to prove that Nick is secretly in love with Jay in the Great Gatsby. You state your claim and then find evidence in the text and introduce the evidence in each paragraph. This form works well when you have to try to prove something, when you need to defend your argument. But for your common app essay no one is challenging you to prove anything. You are telling a story, a true story, one you don’t need to prove. 

Think about telling a story to your friend. They asked you what you did this weekend. You could respond, “I went to the beach, you can tell I went to the beach because 1) I got a tan, 2) I have sand in my shoes, and 3) I didn’t text you back because I have no cell reception at the beach, thus I was at the beach.” First of all, yikes. Second, your friend would probably be confused at best. However if you told them a story like, “The beach was great, I had no cell reception so I just laid around in the sun all day and played in the sand. My dad got so sunburned because he fell asleep in the sun!” They would l probably be engaged in what you are saying and leave the conversion with much of the same information. The same goes for your common app essay.

We want to tell a story and bring the people in. We are not proving any points or being defensive in our common app essays.  No one needs you to prove your story unless of course you are a teen detective telling us how you solved your case. Stories need endings, not conclusions. There is a theme but there is no thesis, no argument. 

Think back to our essay about cooking for your friends. We could start with a sentence that says, “I cook for my friends because I care for them…” It’s not wrong, but it doesn’t feel like a story that can bring a reader in. Instead think about starting an essay with something more like “I had already been in the kitchen for two hours when my souffle fell…” and then weaving the characteristics in through the story that unfolds. This opening doesn’t feel like it could fit in a 5 paragraph essay and it shouldn’t if you break form correctly. 

The name of the game is attention. Reading even the best 5 paragraph essay, isn’t exciting. College admissions department readers have to review, often, hundreds of essays a day. It’s a long and often boring task. Telling a compelling and well-written story will help your essay stand out in a sea of 5 paragraph essays. We often tell students to show off their creative sides when breaking form and some of our favorite essays haven’t actually been “essays” at all. If you want to know more about how to break form creatively, we have a blog post about how you can break form even more than just ditching the 5 paragraph essay here. 

Need help breaking form? Shoot us an email.