How to (Quickly) Format Your Common App Essay

November 6, 2025

On August 1st, the Common Application went live for the 2025-26 admissions season. If you鈥檒l be applying to any colleges using this form, it鈥檚 a smart idea to start inputting information as soon as possible. Since most of your writing will need to be pasted in text boxes (not uploaded), you might be wondering whether there is a specific way to format it, especially your Common App essay. We鈥檙e here with the answer to this and other frequently asked Common App-related questions in today鈥檚 blog.

An important message before we review formatting: please (please!) work on your essays outside of the Common App . Online applications can be glitchy, so the safest route is to write and finalize your essay in Google Docs or Microsoft Word before inserting it into the application.

How should I format my Common App essay?

To format your essays correctly in the Common App, follow these steps:

Select the prompt you’ve responded to.
Copy and paste your finalized essay into the text box.
Check that you are not under the minimum word count or over the maximum word count. Occasionally, the word count you see in word processing applications is not accurate, especially if you use special symbols like hyphens.
Adjust text formatting, if necessary. Available text formatting options include bolding, italicizing, and underlining. While you may need to use italics for book titles, movie titles, words in a language other than English, etc., there are few good reasons to use bolding or underlining in an essay.
Transliterate any words written in non-English alphabets. The Common App does not support non-English alphabets like Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Cyrillic, etc.; any words written in those languages will be displayed as question marks. To correct, you will need to write out the phonetic pronunciations in English.
Remove spaces between paragraphs. The application automatically places a space between each paragraph. If you already have a space, it will become a double space.
Left align each paragraph. The Common App form does not allow tabbing, so it can be difficult to indent your paragraphs consistently. Left aligning is the simplest option.
Finally, click the 鈥淧review鈥� button in the top left corner of your screen to see how your essay will look to the reader.

Why should I bother formatting my Common App essay?

Incorrect or sloppy formatting can be distracting for a reader, especially if there are

different degrees of spacing between your paragraphs,

split

lines, or

inconsistent indentation.

(See?)

Formatting your essays correctly makes it easier for the reader to focus on your content versus its presentation.

Does my Common App essay need a title?

You do not need a title for your Common App essay. With such a limited word count, a title will add little to your composition. Instead, we recommend dedicating the time, word count, and energy that it takes to come up with a title to other aspects of your essay.

How long should my Common App essay be?

The official word count for the Common App essay is 250 to 650 words. That said, the most effective essays we鈥檝e seen are typically between 500 and 650 words. A 250 to 300-word response is often too short to be effective or revealing, so you鈥檒l want to aim for a higher word count if possible.

Does font size matter?

You have to use Size 16 Wingdings. Just kidding. Any (legible) font and font size is perfectly fine鈥攖he application will automatically reformat when you paste it into the application text box.

Can I make changes to my essay after submitting?

Yes, but there is a caveat. Let鈥檚 say you submit an application to Duke and decide you want to change or add something to your essay before you submit it to Harvard and Stanford. You can go ahead and do this, but those changes would not register on applications that you have already submitted, only on applications that you have yet to submit.

Technically, you can submit completely different versions of your Common App essay to different schools, but there are very few situations in which we would actually recommend this.

Do all colleges on the Common Application require the Common App essay?

Nope. Many do, but some do not. For others, it is optional (pro tip: always submit if optional).

You can find this information within the 鈥淲riting鈥� tab on the main Common App form:

For any schools in the 鈥淣ot Required鈥� section, head to the “My Colleges” tab and check out the 鈥淐ollege Information鈥� area, specifically the “Application information” dropdown.

For example, the University of Washington specifies the following:

No Common App personal essay

The Common App personal essay will not be reviewed as part of your application to the University of Washington. Be sure to complete the University of Washington writing section to tell us everything you want us to know.

This means that you can use your Common Application essay (usually as-is) for UW鈥檚 required personal statement.

Don’t see any information about the Common App personal statement in the “Application information” area? See if there is a “Writing” tab within the college’s supplemental application that contains more information. For example, Penn State’s “Writing” tab shares the following:

Penn State does not require a Personal Statement for your application to be considered complete. However, if you wrote a Personal Essay in your Common App profile and choose to include it in your application, your Personal Essay will be sent to Penn State once you submit your application. 聽聽

In addition to the Common App essay, what other essays will I have to write?

This depends on which schools you are applying to. Starting August 1, you can start gathering supplemental essays for every school on your list. To do that:

Add the school(s) you鈥檙e applying to in the 鈥淐ollege Search鈥� tab.
Click on the 鈥淢y Colleges鈥� tab to see the colleges you鈥檝e added. Then, click the dropdown box next to each college’s name to reveal the different sections of the application.

Then:

Fill out basic information about yourself, including your intended major or choice of department. Sometimes, your choice of major or program triggers additional essays.
Click through every section of the school鈥檚 supplemental application. Most often, supplemental essays are found in the 鈥淲riting鈥� or 鈥淲riting Supplement鈥� areas, but they can be located elsewhere as well.

We recommend collecting all your essays in one place before you start working. Understanding which prompts you need to write will help you balance information across your application. For example, if a particular school does not require/review the Common Application personal statement, you can adapt its content for use in other essays.

Final Thoughts

After all the hard work you put into your essays, there are just a few final steps to attend to before you submit those essays to your colleges of choice. Luckily, formatting your Common App essay correctly can be completed quickly and will pay major dividends toward your application鈥檚 overall presentation.

Looking for additional essay-writing resources? We鈥檝e got you covered:

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Kelsea Conlin

Kelsea holds a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from Tufts University, a graduate certificate in College Counseling from UCLA, and an MA in Teaching Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her short fiction has appeared in Chautauqua and she is a co-author of Colleges Worth Your Money: A Guide to What America's Top Schools Can Do For You.

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