Writing the Community Essay
Common App Supplemental Essays
By Eric Tipler, July 1, 2024
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:
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:
Identify your community and show your place in it.
Tell a brief story that shows you as active, engaged, and involved.
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).
Community Essay Example
Prompt
Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it. (300 words)
Essay
Last fall, I never would have imagined that a group of juniors, who at first glance have little in common, would become so important to me. The Teen Prevention Education Program (Teen PEP) is a peer-to- peer sexual education program that equips students with knowledge and skills for sexual health. Through interactive workshops that include skits, talks, and group discussions, we create safe environments to educate students about topics like gender and homophobia, while teaching skills to make healthy decisions and resist peer pressure.
The work I’ve done for Teen PEP has been incredibly meaningful, and I’m proud to have had a positive impact on the next generation of Goode High students. What surprised me, however, was how close I became to the other peer educators in my cohort, and how we became a community.
Our cohort contains students from a variety of social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. We practice different religions and come from different cultures, but through hours of honest and personal discussions, we found that we shared a deep desire to help others and to bring more justice into the world. Often, we would stay late at night after our Teen PEP meetings, discussing current events, world politics, and social change.
This community, with its diversity of thought and opinion, has changed me. It has exposed me to new ideas and led me to broaden my circle of friends. Over time, I even surprised myself with how vocal I became about my own ideas and passions, especially around gender and equity.
Although we will soon split up to follow our own paths, I’m grateful for what my Teen PEP community has given me, and I know I will find similarly inclusive and engaging communities at the University of Olympus.
For more help with the Community essay and the rest of your college applications, get a copy of Write Yourself In from your favorite library or bookseller!
