Writing the Community Essay

Common App Supplemental Essays

Form: Narrative essay, usually short- or medium-length

Audience: The admissions committee

Topic: Your relationship to a community that’s important to you

Purpose: To give the reader a sense of who you are in a community, and to show them what you value

The Community essay is a narrative essay about your engagement with a particular community. The prompt typically asks you to pick one community and discuss your role in it. For example:

Sample Community Essay Prompt: Yale University

Reflect on your membership in a community. Why is your involvement important to you? How has it shaped you? You may define community however you like. (400 words)

Most colleges allow you to define “community” in almost any way you want. Your community could be your school, an activity you participate in, or a sports team you’re part of. Since you have so much latitude, it’s important to pick a community that you genuinely care about! It could be your church, synagogue, mosque, or other religious community. Your family and any ethnic/racial group you belong to are all communities. If you identify as a person of color or as LGBTQIA+, this can be a great place to highlight how that community has shaped you.

The best Community essays usually do three things:

  1. Identify your community and show your place in it.

  2. Tell a brief story that shows you as active, engaged, and involved.

  3. Make some sort of statement about the kind of community you value.

Tips for a Great Community Essay

1. Pick the right community. You want to be writing about a community where you’re deeply engaged. The best choice is usually a community you’ve been involved with over multiple years, ideally where you’ve also shown some leadership

2. Narrow the focus. That said, you can’t sum up 3 years in 200 words! Instead, focus your essay on one story that highlights your engagement with this community

3. Show both the “What” and the “Why.” For these essays to really land, it’s crucial to be clear about both the “What?” (What have you actually done as a member of this community? Be specific!) and the “Why?” (Why, exactly, is it meaningful to you?).

For more on the Community essay, including brainstorming questions, outline tips, and actual essays that helped students get admitted to top schools, check out Chapter 6 of Write Yourself In (p. 178).