How to Answer the Coalition Application Essay Prompts 2023-24

This article will cover each of the Coalition Application essay prompts and how to answer each one.

The Coalition App serves as a great way for students to apply to more colleges when they’re already limited by the Common App. Additionally, the Coalition essay serves as a great way to stand out from other applicants in the admissions pool. It’s one of the only spaces where you can share what makes you special outside of GPA and SAT/ACT scores.

Below we’ve dissected every prompt and showed how to respond to each one.

Table of Contents

How to Answer the Coalition Application Essay Prompts 2023-24
Coalition Application Essay Prompts FAQ

How to Answer the Coalition Application Essay Prompts

Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.

To answer this one, we don’t recommend starting with a story or experience. Instead, start by thinking about emotions in the past that you remember greatly.

When you try to fish for a good story, you’re not letting your mind coalesce into a topic naturally. You’d be looking for a topic that makes you look good. This makes you miss out on a lot of otherwise fantastic experiences or life stories that can say a lot about you.

So, don’t think about the story itself. A story will come naturally. Start by thinking about a moment you felt a certain way. Maybe you think about how you used to feel very sad. Or, you used to feel very lonely. These feelings will later funnel you to a topic that feels natural. It may start to go into a topic like “moving to a new school with no friends” or “being betrayed by parents.”

These are hard topics. And, students are likely to be averse to writing about them. But, it’s exactly these hard topics that demonstrate the most character and growth over time! That’s why we have you try to look inward to your emotions first before fishing for a topic! If you choose an experience first, you’ll be blinded by biases and choose an easy topic. And, easy topics don’t truly show everything about you. So, just pay attention to your emotions and look for moments you feel something strong. It’s often these topics that truly have the most value.

Here’s an example.

You recently feel as if you can’t really say what you want to say as a man. You feel like every time you want to express grief or sadness you can’t do so. Thus, you drill back to the first time you felt disregarded for your sadness. You remember one instance of a female friend who once told you that you can be vulnerable. She mentioned how “boys can cry too.” So, when you mentioned how you were upset about your mother’s divorce and cried in her arms, she didn’t know how to respond and awkwardly shunned you away. This has left a lasting impact on you to be untrusting of people’s word. But, over time, you’ve learned to trust people for their word despite this betrayal. This growth over time not only shows maturity but also courage in trusting others once again.

What interests or excites you? How does it shape who you are now or who you might become in the future?

The second Coalition Application essay prompt is the perfect time to nerd out.

Note, however, that you DON’T have to write about your intended major. This interesting topic or idea can be anything at all. There’s just one rule: it needs to correlate with who you are today and how it’ll shape you in the future.

We actually recommend writing about something outside of your major for the second Coalition Application essay prompt! Writing about an outside topic shows more of your personal character outside of academics. Also, most readers know the value of your intended major anyway since answers are similar all across the board. They want something unique; so, give it to them!

Here’s a good example of a topic.

You’ve always had a passion for digital art. While you’re more planning a future in the world of business, you still love to spend your free time creating art and designing digital landscapes that would be suitable for game companies. Specifically, you enjoy the world of concept art and concept design for games. Funnily enough, the world of design is not all about creating characters that would look cool in a still image. There’s also the question of creating a functional character who can be animated across multiple scenes or events in a given moment. So, the world of concept art can be as much a manufacturing world as much as it is artistic. As someone looking to get into private consulting, you’re planning on advising at the administrative level to ensure quality control for other companies. Yet, if given the opportunity, you would love to integrate your hobbies in art and borrow some of the principles of concept design for your consulting.

Okay, now let’s say you insist on writing about your major. That’s fine. It’s not our recommended path, but the general rule still remains. Be unique and look at it from multiple angles!

Here’s an example if you want to write about something in your academic field or major.

As an aspiring sociologist, you appreciate the science behind social interactions and dynamics. In particular, you are fascinated by the way social rules and expectations evolve over time. However, you’re also interested in the principles of Economics, Psychology, and Econophysics that play a massive role in sociological evolution. To dig deeper, you found social media’s First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system a fascinating way of increasing engagement whilst exacerbating extremism. Then, in the future, you’re looking to take sociological research with a more quantitative approach.

This is an interesting topic to write about since it shows a variety of dimensions to your passions and interests.

Describe a time when you had a positive impact on others. What were the challenges? What were the rewards?

There’s just one thing you need to keep in mind when answering this particular Coalition Application essay prompt. Life is weird.

Most if not everyone has had a positive impact on others. They can be as big as large financial benefits to non-profits. Or, they can be as inconspicuous as the time you petted a lost cat. You can even write about how being friends with your tight-knit friend group has had a positive impact on everyone.

But, here’s the thing: “Positive impacts” can exist in abstractions.

That is, they don’t need to be just physical. Positive impacts can be metaphysical; they can be philosophical, and even spiritual. In some ways, you can even have a positive impact with unexpected negative outcomes. After all, the path of virtue is not without adversity. And, good deeds seldom go unpunished.

Here’s an example topic.

You and your sister come from a family of diabetes. It is quite normal for your family to normalize a sedentary lifestyle, as your mother works in office administration and your father runs his own online small agency. Additionally, Mexican cuisine using heavy meats and high-sugar desserts is a norm. As such, you’ve seen your sister and yourself inflate in weight and body fat percentage. Your family doctor has said that your and your sister’s weight has gotten to a point where it may negatively impact your guys’ health. Thus, you’ve established a proper exercise and diet routine that would help you two regain your health. However, it’s meant forgoing the delicious tastes that Mexican culture has to offer. And, while slimming down, you two have attracted unwanted attention from other men.

This works as a fantastic topic because it shows the complexity of good deeds. While you may have positively impacted your and your sister’s lives, you’ve also strayed away from your family’s cooking. Also, you’ve unexpectedly brought unwanted eyes from the male gaze. The multi-variable perspective here demonstrates to admissions officers that you’re not one-dimensional in the way you look at positive outcomes.

Has there been a time when an idea or belief of yours was questioned? How did you respond? What did you learn?

To answer the “questioned idea or belief” Coalition Application essay prompt, you’ll need to demonstrate humility.

This is actually quite a difficult prompt for a lot of students to answer. Most counselors recommend their students use this opportunity to brag. But, this prompt isn’t for bragging alone. You need to also show you’ve grown through your humbleness.

However, students can get quite confused by this. How does one show both humility and brag at the same time? It seems impossible!

Well, there’s a fine line between them. If you can balance between showing humility and being proud of your growth, you can have the perfect harmony between the two to answer this prompt.

Too humble? It doesn’t show enough of your strengths. Too braggy? You’ll look too arrogant.

Here’s a great example of a topic for this prompt.

You wanted to help students with disabilities by starting a club for them. So, you made the “Origami for Special Education” club. Here, club members could create origami cranes, frogs, and other designs for special education students. You formed the club with your friends being the club cabinet members. Soon, their friends and acquaintances joined, and it grew in size. While you thought you were doing something great for the school and its community, you discovered something quite dark. Students (even your cabinet members) only joined to have something to write on their resumes. Not only that, they didn’t like special ed students. To make things more complicated, the special ed teachers advising your club actually knew of this. But, they thought that “the intention doesn’t matter, so long as the result is happy special ed students.” In other words, it was a “mutually beneficial ecosystem.” Special ed students received more emotional support, and other students could boost their applications. It’s made you hypothesize about your responsibilities as a leader. And, you’ve been humbled by people’s seemingly pure altruism.

What success have you achieved or obstacle have you faced? What advice would you give a sibling or friend going through a similar experience?

This is a great topic for anyone to answer. If you don’t know which of the Coalition Application essay prompts to answer, the obstacle prompt is perfect.

The obstacle prompt is very helpful for students who want to impress admissions officers and leave a lasting impact. By showing how you’ve achieved success or worked to overcome an obstacle, you show admissions officers your ability to face problems. And, it also gives them the faith that they can bring that grit and determination to university.

To truly stand out in this prompt, we highly recommend aiming for two things.

How you faced adversity.
How you can share your knowledge with others.

The first point is quite obvious. You want to show the kinds of characteristics it took to truly achieve success or overcome your obstacle. Chances are, if it’s anything worth talking about, it took a lot of grit and determination. Or, if you want to get creative, it may even require you to change the way you think overall.

The second point is actually more important than you expect.

The respective university you choose to apply for will want to know how you can share knowledge. Part of a great college experience is working alongside others and sharing what you know. So, if you just give generic advice, it’s probably not going to leave a lasting impression. Meanwhile, if you make your essay solid with profound advice, admissions officers will be more likely to be impressed with your potential impact at the school.

Here’s an example topic.

You’re the only girl in a friend group of men. And, while your male friends appreciate and listen to you, something troubled you. Recently, a friend had made a sexist joke against women; and, all the boys laughed. While you normally can laugh off some of these jokes since they’re in high school, you felt wronged. You decided to speak up about it and tell them how uncomfortable it made you feel. And, they dismissed it as “just joking” which, while true, still hurt you regardless. This truth made things ultimately quite awkward in the group. You understood how they felt their language was being wrongfully controlled. And, you felt awkward in having to establish boundaries. Yet, over time, you started to feel like your relationship has actually strengthened much more. Your friends were able to appreciate that you were willing to tell them uncomfortable truths, even at the risk of making the scene awkward. It was this honesty that solidified their idea that they could trust you. In later years, they’ve come to trust you for advice since they knew that you would speak the truth even if it hurts. And, to siblings or friends enduring the same situation, you would recommend them to speak the truth. For, while it’s strange and awkward at first, it sets a precedent of trust for the rest of the friendship.

What’s great about this topic is the nuance. Note: this topic is not just a generic one with typical advice that can be given to anyone. It covers some of the complexities of the real world and recommends to students an unusual bit of advice. This take on “suspending right and wrong” shows the admissions office that the writer is not just writing content to sound profound. Rather, they have a sophisticated take on an otherwise troubling problem.

Submit an essay on a topic of your choice.

This prompt is deceivingly difficult.

While limitless freedom may seem like a blessing, it’s difficult to actually settle on a topic. Choosing your own topic can easily become a catastrophizing nightmare. Here’s the thing: when schools let you submit an essay on any topic, they really mean it! Other than any illegal activity, you’re free to choose whatever topic you want. Just make sure it shows your best qualities about yourself.

We actually recommend using this prompt to show something important to you that can’t be answered by any other prompt. So, if there’s a significant story or moment in time that you feel impacted you, use this prompt!

But, again, remember to show your best sides when writing your essay.

Here’s an example of a topic.

One night, you spot a cute domestic bunny rabbit hopping about. It’s certainly not wild; and, you can tell. This time of the year, “Easter bunnies” are bought as gifts and then abandoned: a horrible and disgusting practice. You’ve nothing but sympathy for this rabbit, and while it’d be nice to take him in you decide against it. Why? Well, it’s because you’re already taking care of far too much in your own life. Your plate is full, and you have no more space to help take care of a rabbit. Doing so would likely just harm him more. You leave him alone and truly feel disempowered by just how little control you have. If you had all the control in the world, you would have taken him in and nurtured him with clean baths and good food. Yet, this experience has taught you just how powerless you feel. It’s motivated you to get out of a rut and ultimately become someone capable of doing good for the world.

Coalition Application Essay Prompts FAQ

How Do I Structure and Format My Coalition Essay?

You are not obligated to write your essay in any format or structure whatsoever. So, you won’t be officially penalized for writing formally or having no paragraph breaks.

However, if you truly want to have a format that conveys your message well, we highly recommend writing in a narrative format.

This includes writing in a story format, informally, and in a First-Person format. Also, don’t be afraid to use strong imagery and creative descriptions to capture your reader’s attention. Your writing should be descriptive enough such that someone can read it and infer multiple character traits about you.

How Many Words Can the Coalition App Essay Be?

Here are the instructions for answering the Coalition Application essay prompts. According to the website, you are limited to 650 words.

“As part of your application, some colleges require an essay. The Coalition’s essay prompts allow you to share experiences or perspectives that shape who you are – because your story and your identity matters.

Select a prompt from the list below, and share an essay of about 500-650 words that will help admissions counselors get to know you.”
Coalition Application Essay Prompts Instructions 2023-24

We recommend writing your Coalition App Essay anywhere between 550-650 words to make the most out of your word count.

What Should I Write for My Coalition Application Essay?

You can technically write your Coalition App essay about anything.

However, we recommend choosing a topic that fulfills 2 requirements…

It should have a lot of meaning or significance in your life.
It should demonstrate your character and personal qualities.

Writing about something significant to you makes it easier to describe. When we’re working with our clients during our college essay services, we often have them describe their most meaningful experiences. This helps them articulate emotions they normally haven’t thought about. And, it’s much easier to describe these than something they’re not passionate about. Trust us: writing about something meaningful looks much better than something academically impressive yet unfulfilling. Admissions officers can feel your passion (or lack thereof) between the lines.

Additionally, make sure your essay topic shows characteristics and personality traits your readers will notice. Your experience helping to feed the homeless during a volunteer project may show your passion for helping the community. But, it also shows a willingness to get your hands dirty with physical work. It also demonstrates humility, as you’re capable of putting yourself physically within proximity to the homeless community.

Most of our clients only scratch the surface. They don’t see all the other soft skills and characteristics their experiences actually say about them. So, don’t miss them! Make sure to write about everything your experience says about you!

Is My Coalition App Essay Cringe?

No.

There are moments when one’s college essay is cringe. Sometimes this involves standing outside the fringes of generally accepted society. For instance: breaking social boundaries or not following standards in a manner that makes people uncomfortable.

However, for the most part, your Coalition Essay will not be cringe no matter your topic. Instead, the “cringe” factor comes from the writer’s anxious mind. When the mind is worried about what the admissions officers are thinking, they will see everything they write as silly. You can learn more about “cringe” in the Coalition Application essay in our Reddit post here.

If you have any other questions about how to answer the Coalition Application essay prompts, don’t worry. We’re here to help. Schedule a free consultation with us today, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours! Our college essay consultants have helped students answer each of the Coalition Application essay prompts well and stand out. Additionally, we’ve helped countless students get into some of the best schools in the nation. These include but are not limited to UCLA, UCB, Notre Dame, Stanford, USC, Brown, Cornell, and UPenn.