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How to Write the ApplyTexas Essays 2023-2024 + Examples

Born from the collaboration between the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and various public and private universities around the state, ApplyTexas is a wide-spanning application that allows its users to apply to hundreds of Texan colleges. Like the Common App, it offers a platform for students—natively Texan or not—to send off the same information to many schools, although each school may require differing additional information. 

Unlike the Common App, ApplyTexas may be used to apply to the community colleges, public four-years, participating private schools, graduate programs, and even scholarships within Texan borders. For this article’s purposes, we will be focusing primarily on ApplyTexas’s 150+ four-year colleges and universities. Check out our full list of Texan colleges .

Read this ApplyTexas essay example to inspire your own writing.

Which Colleges Require Which Essays?

As for the ApplyTexas essays, there are three main prompts — prompts A, B, and C — but some colleges will only require some, keep others optional, or not accept certain prompts at all. They may also have additional short answer questions and supplements of their own. Even the recommended word count varies between schools.

Here’s a quick snapshot into the unique essay requirements of a few top ApplyTexas colleges:

University of Texas at Austin:

• Topic A is required.
• 4 short answer responses, 1 of which is optional (250-300 words).
• Additional major-specific materials/requirements for art/art history, architecture, nursing, and social work programs .
• Also accepts the Common App.

Southern Methodist University:

• Topic A essay required, B is optional. 
• Also accepts the Common App, Coalition Application, and its own application.

Texas A&M University, College Station:

• Topic A is required. 
• 4 additional short answers for all applicants, 1 of which is optional.
• 1 short answer for applicants to the College of Engineering.

Baylor University, Waco:

• Choose between Topic A, B or C (optional). 
• Also accepts the Common App and its own application.

Texas Christian University:

• Any essay topic on the ApplyTexas application (optional)
• 3 additional short answer questions, 1 of which is optional.
• Any essay topic on the ApplyTexas application (optional).

Never ignore optional prompts! Taking the time to complete them shows that you truly care about the school. Ignoring them will make admissions officers wonder if you even like it enough to actually attend it if accepted.

If you are applying to any of these universities and feel you would rather use the Coalition Application or the Common Application, see our Coalition Application Essay Guide and our Common Application Essay Guide . Keep in mind that essay requirements will vary depending on which platform you use. For instance, some schools (SMU, TCU, Baylor) may have additional short essays if you use the Common App.

If you still feel ApplyTexas is the platform for you, read on!

Before You Begin

It’s important to verify that your desired schools are featured on the ApplyTexas platform. Certain private schools—Rice University, for example—use the Common Application instead of ApplyTexas.

And while all the public universities in Texas accept ApplyTexas, some of them also accept the Common Application and Coalition Application, as we’ve seen. The Common Application , Coalition Application , and ApplyTexas offer tools to determine whether a university is included in their platform. Be sure to verify which application is better suited to your college list. Many students can tackle all their schools with just the Common App, but others may have to use a couple different platforms.

Approaching the ApplyTexas Essays

So you’ve worked through the application form, requested copies of your transcript and recommendation letters, effectively described your extracurriculars, and sent in your scores, if any. All that remains now are the essays: your best shot at showing admissions officers how you think, who you are, what matters to you, and why!

As you may remember, ApplyTexas contains three essay prompts: Topics A, B, and C. Each school may have different essay requirements, so it is best to familiarize yourself with all of them. For instance, even if you’re bursting with knowledge about your future major, these essays are an opportunity to speak holistically with regards to your life and experience.

Essay-Writing Strategies

With few parameters aside from the word limit of approximately 800 words (and with each school often setting different word counts), the ApplyTexas essay may seem intimidating. Luckily, the prompts can act as a creative and procedural tether. Whereas students applying via Common Application may begin by shaping a central idea before matching it up to one of the various prompts, ApplyTexas essays grow from the prompt up . Because of this, the best brainstorming and organizational practices for each prompt are unique. The one factor that remains ubiquitously relevant is writing — good writing. Before we get into the details of ideation and organization for each prompt, we’ll review some ways to ensure your writing is clear, communicative, and evocative.

Tips for writing well:

• Show, don’t tell (you’ve heard it before, but it’s worth hearing again!)
• Use active, rather than passive, sentence construction.
• Write with precision.
• Avoid clichés

The somewhat hackneyed advice of “Show, don’t tell” is nevertheless crucial to writing a compelling application essay. The meaning of showing a reader rather than telling them is best interpreted literally. Imagine you’re outside your house and you see a dog skateboarding on it’s two front paws. You run inside, eager to { tell, show } whoever is home. You fling open the door and narrowly avoid a collision with your brother, still unlacing his shoes from basketball practice.

You tell him: “Aamir, I just saw a dog skateboarding on its two front paws!”

You show him: You grab Aamir by the corner of his Jersey. “Come quick” you squeal, and he stumbles out after you, tripping on his laces. Thankfully, the dog is still there. “Just look,” you breathe out, already mesmerized by the wind rushing through the schnauzer’s mustache. Wobbling ever so slightly, the pup remains confident as he shreds the inclined blacktop of the cul-de-sac. Then, a moment later, it’s over. Unaware of the scale of his accomplishment, the dog scratches behind his right ear. You look over at Aamir. “Whoa.”

Out of these two scenarios, we can be sure that Aamir will only remember the second. It’s much the same for admissions committees; they’re more likely to remember you if you show them what you want to communicate. Now, showing doesn’t need to be much longer than telling. In fact, succinct writing is just as important as descriptive writing. Abandoning the literal narrative of “showing,” we’re left with something like this: A schnauzer puppy from the cul-de-sac was balanced on his front paws—miraculously, on a skateboard. Man, that dog could shred.

Using active voice is another crucial component of clean, clear writing. It’s also pretty simple. Make sure your sentence’s subject performs the action indicated by the verb. For example, instead of writing “the skateboard was maneuvered by a schnauzer,” you would opt for, “the schnauzer maneuvered the skateboard.” The only exception to this rule is when you want to bring explicit attention to the person or thing affected by an action. Our story is actually a decent example. What’s more noteworthy? The skateboarding? Or the fact that a dog is doing it? An acceptable passive construction might look like this: “the skateboard—would you believe it—was being maneuvered by none other than the schnauzer from across the cul-de-sac.” In this instance, we’re able to use passive voice to create humor and suspense. That being said, the vast majority of your sentences should employ the active voice.

The active voice is also a big part of writing with precision , and word choice may also make writing precise or imprecise. For example, while “evasive” is a synonym of “oblique” in one sense, it would nevertheless be embarrassing to write that, “John sat in the armchair evasive to the television.” Rather than picturing a chair positioned diagonally (obliquely) from the television, readers are left wondering what in the world an evasive chair might be. So use your thesaurus — carefully. 

It is common for burgeoning writers to get a little too adjective-happy. Adjectives’ power correlates inversely with their use. If each of your sentences is flush with adjectives, you’re diluting their impact.

Finally, avoid any clichés, aphorisms, etc. that fail to add value to your essay. Admissions officers will read countless essays boasting “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  If you’re tempted to use a hackneyed phrase, find its seed instead. Clichés are cliché because they stem from important thoughts, universal truths, and romantic principles. In the case of “Be the change you want to see in the world,” the seed might be an individual’s ability to impact a community, or to transform outdated and unjust systems. The seed of a clichéd phrase may still be worth writing about, but it’s important that you write authentically and originally.

Dissecting the Prompts

ApplyTexas features two sets of prompts, one for incoming freshmen (both domestic and international) and one for transfer, transient, or readmit applications. In this article, we will cover the first set to help freshman applicants. Want to know your chances at an ApplyTexas school? Calculate your chances for free right now.

While different schools require different combinations of essays, most students should be prepared to deal with topics A, B, and C. Students intent on pursuing a degree related to art and design should also be ready to answer topic D. Check out this ApplyTexas database to scout out which schools will require which essays . 

Here are this year’s prompts:

• Topic A: Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?
• Topic B: Most students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. Tell us about yourself.
• Topic C: You’ve got a ticket in your hand – Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?
• Topic D (specific to majors in architecture, art history, design, studio art, visual art studies/art education): Personal interaction with objects, images and spaces can be so powerful as to change the way one thinks about particular issues or topics. For your intended area of study (architecture, art history, design, studio art, visual art studies/art education), describe an experience where instruction in that area or your personal interaction with an object, image or space effected this type of change in your thinking. What did you do to act upon your new thinking and what have you done to prepare yourself for further study in this area?

Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?

Notice how you are encouraged to speak about an opportunity or a challenge. Many students believe that they must talk about a tragedy in order to grab the attention of admissions officers, but this isn’t true. An essay can easily be thoughtful, insightful, and an engaging read without utilizing this specific emotional appeal.

Still, stories about difficult circumstances are often memorable. They are most effective when focused primarily on the student’s journey of working through the challenge instead of the challenge itself. Check out Collegevine’s article if you would like more tips on writing about challenges .

You’re trying to stand out, so beware of overused tropes like the following:

• Mental illness: It takes enormous strength to heal from and learn to manage a mental illness. Still, they may be tricky to write about. Read our article for more information on covering mental illness and disabilities within your application .
• Getting a bad grade in a class but then working hard to raise it.
• Sports stories such as winning/losing the “big game” or getting injured.
• Death of a pet or family member.
• Mission trip which made you realize how lucky and privileged you are.

Side note : Sometimes students face challenges that are outside of their control and which have negatively impacted their academic and/or extracurricular performance. If this has been your experience, and you don’t plan to explain them within this essay response, you may ask one of your recommenders to do so through their letter of recommendation.

Now, there’s no such thing as a “bad” or “good” essay topic; students have gotten into top schools with essays about Costco, pizza deliveries, and sparkling water. It often matters less so what you write about than how you write about it! 

These common essay topics are only doable when well-written, specific, and featuring a fresh take. The story of how fixing your Calculus grade taught you the value of hard work is not nearly as interesting as that of a student who is diagnosed with dyscalculia—a disability which creates a difficulty in understanding and working with math and numbers—and then opens up a dyscalculia awareness club with plans to become a special education teacher. The latter story would demonstrate the student’s ability to turn preconceived weaknesses into strengths, and admissions officers will quickly see that though he may initially struggle with long division, this student is nonetheless a creative problem-solver.

Please be aware that although it is possible to make a “common” topic interesting, it is easier to write about a situation that is unique to begin with. Also, don’t feel pressured to write about a challenge, especially if the situation has happened so recently that you haven’t fully finished processing or growing from it.

With all of this in mind, let’s get into brainstorming! Many people begin their ideation process through writing long lists or even talking into their phones in an untethered stream-of-consciousness. Do whatever it takes to get your creative juices flowing! 

As you reflect, you may consider these questions:

• Which values and skills do you hold closest to your heart? Honesty? Hard work? Clear communication? Diversity? Environmental stewardship? Activism? Where did these priorities come from?
• What are you most grateful for? What are you most proud of? What risks have you taken which have paid off?
• What do you like to do? When and how did you get into it?
• How would your family and friends say you have changed for the better over the years, and why?
• Look back at your list of extracurricular activities. Which ones were challenging and/or special opportunities? When have you tried something new?

Practice self-compassion while considering topics, and know that none are too big or too small. You can write about anything from taking a summer math class (even though you’re more of an English person) to being a camp counselor to giving your first speech in front of a crowd.

Overall, the admissions officers are looking for growth. They want to see the circumstances you turned into opportunities for improvement. You may even reflect upon a situation that initially seemed like an unpleasant challenge but later revealed itself as a hidden opportunity. For example, you may have reluctantly let your friend drag you to a business club meeting before discovering a passion for economics and rising as a club leader.

Ideally, your story will be unique and offer a fresh perspective. Be specific about the challenge or opportunity you were presented with, and think about how it changed you for the better. 

Remember, they are literally asking for you to “tell [them] your story,” so consider using a narrative format, especially if storytelling is a talent of yours. 

Here’s a general outline: 

• If you choose to go with a traditional storytelling format, we recommend beginning with a vivid anecdote featuring rich imagery to draw the reader in or an unexpected premise which makes one have to read on in order to fully understand. 
• From there, you may dive into who you were at the time, how you felt and how you acted, before moving towards your turning point—the challenge or opportunity—from which you decided to grow. 
• Explain how, exactly, the turning point influenced you. Ask yourself: How did it make you feel? Excited and ready for more, or initially anxious? How did it impact you? Perhaps you learned something new about yourself, or maybe now you’re kinder, more confident, or a harder worker. 
• To mix it up a bit, you could even play with sequencing, perhaps starting with a moment of success before reflecting on all of the growth you had to complete to get to that point.

Finally, you are human, so you don’t have to portray yourself as perfect in the end. You are using this essay to talk about what may be one of your greatest strengths or sources of pride, but make sure to stay balanced with a humble tone.

Here’s an Example Essay for Topic A:

The morning of the Model United Nation conference, I walked into Committee feeling confident  about my research. We were simulating the Nuremberg Trials – a series of post-World War II  proceedings for war crimes – and my portfolio was of the Soviet Judge Major General Iona  Nikitchenko. Until that day, the infamous Nazi regime had only been a chapter in my history  textbook; however, the conference’s unveiling of each defendant’s crimes brought those horrors  to life. The previous night, I had organized my research, proofread my position paper and gone  over Judge Nikitchenko’s pertinent statements. I aimed to find the perfect balance between his  stance and my own.

As I walked into committee anticipating a battle of wits, my director abruptly called out to me.  “I’m afraid we’ve received a late confirmation from another delegate who will be representing  Judge Nikitchenko. You, on the other hand, are now the defense attorney, Otto Stahmer.”  Everyone around me buzzed around the room in excitement, coordinating with their allies and  developing strategies against their enemies, oblivious to the bomb that had just dropped on me.  I felt frozen in my tracks, and it seemed that only rage against the careless delegate who had  confirmed her presence so late could pull me out of my trance. After having spent a month  painstakingly crafting my verdicts and gathering evidence against the Nazis, I now needed to  reverse my stance only three hours before the first session.

Gradually, anger gave way to utter panic. My research was fundamental to my performance, and without it, I knew I could add little to the Trials. But confident in my ability, my director  optimistically recommended constructing an impromptu defense. Nervously, I began my  research anew. Despite feeling hopeless, as I read through the prosecution’s arguments, I  uncovered substantial loopholes. I noticed a lack of conclusive evidence against the defendants  and certain inconsistencies in testimonies.

My discovery energized me, inspiring me to revisit  the historical overview in my conference “Background Guide” and to search the web for other  relevant articles. Some Nazi prisoners had been treated as “guilty” before their court dates.  While I had brushed this information under the carpet while developing my position as a judge,  it now became the focus of my defense. I began scratching out a new argument, centered on the premise that the allied countries had violated the fundamental rule that, a defendant was “not guilty” until proven otherwise.

At the end of the three hours, I felt better prepared. The first session began, and with bravado, I  raised my placard to speak. Microphone in hand, I turned to face my audience. “Greetings  delegates. I, Otto Stahmer would like to…….” I suddenly blanked. Utter dread permeated my  body as I tried to recall my thoughts in vain. “Defence Attorney, Stahmer we’ll come back to  you,” my Committee Director broke the silence as I tottered back to my seat, flushed with  embarrassment. Despite my shame, I was undeterred. I needed to vindicate my director’s faith  in me. I pulled out my notes, refocused, and began outlining my arguments in a more clear and  direct manner. Thereafter, I spoke articulately, confidently putting forth my points. I was  overjoyed when Secretariat members congratulated me on my fine performance.

Going into the conference, I believed that preparation was the key to success. I wouldn’t say I  disagree with that statement now, but I believe adaptability is equally important. My ability to  problem-solve in the face of an unforeseen challenge proved advantageous in the art of  diplomacy. Not only did this experience transform me into a confident and eloquent delegate at  that conference, but it also helped me become a more flexible and creative thinker in a variety of other capacities. Now that I know I can adapt under pressure, I look forward to engaging in  activities that will push me to be even quicker on my feet.

Most students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. Tell us about yourself.

This prompt is a more varied than the first one, and gives you more leeway in choosing what you’ll actually be talking about. Someone’s identity, talents, and interests, might be linked together but they just as easily might not. Either way, don’t worry. With regards to this prompt, there is no ideal angle. Let’s break down what it could mean to address each of these categories.

Identity can refer to any number of traits that you feel define you. This includes race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and other more community-based identities such as gamer, athlete, artist, weaver, dancer, Democrat, etc. Your identity is simply what makes you, you. Essays about identity are a great opportunity to demonstrate your critical and political acuity, personal convictions, and social history. However, they also pose certain risks. The premise of writing about identity is that you’ll demonstrate what makes you unique as a person. Even though many of us share certain identity traits, we’ve all experienced them differently. It’s especially important to focus on those details. Essays about identity that lack individual texture risk making you appear almost clone-like. That being said, there is no topic that is inherently cliché for this prompt.

Talent is a topic that will surely feel familiar to you as a prospective college applicant. Frankly, that’s what can make it tricky to write an essay about your talents—it risks echoing the several other parts of an application that are designed to draw out and display your talents for an admissions committee. Even so, if you believe that you have gained an especially insightful lesson or reflection from one of your listed activities, it may still be worth writing about. Just make sure you’re elaborating on your talents rather than reiterating them. Beyond the talents already featured in your application, many applicants have a talent that stands out from their formal talents and activities. One might be a master bird-caller, for example, but not have it listed as an extracurricular. Often times, writing about a wild-card talent is a way to introduce a facet of your personality that would otherwise remain invisible. The topic of talent also gives you the opportunity to write about certain interpersonal skills that might be especially important to you but impossible to express on a resume. For example, if you cultivate your skills as a listener and have a well-formulated political or philosophical imperative for doing so, that could make a great topic.

Interests are unique from talents in that you need not necessarily be good at them. They might not even be skills-related to begin with. For example, you might be supremely interested in pigeons but unable to include that interest in any other part of the application. Interests can make for especially unique, quirky, and fascinating essays. That being said, such essays also risk missing the whole point of the prompt. You need to tell the committee about yourself. If you choose to write about an obscure interest, it’ll be crucial to relate it back to your personality, outlook, or identity.

Now that we’ve addressed the differences between the subsections of this prompt, let’s review some ways in which you can brainstorm. While writing about identity, talents, or interests will result in slightly different essays, the goal is the same: to show the admissions committee—through your own eyes—who exactly you are.

The first step in brainstorming for this prompt is making a list of your defining characteristics. As you do this, you’ll want to prioritize characteristics that paint you in a generally positive light. While you don’t want to brag, you definitely want to be optimistic about who you are.

Second , you should make a sort of genealogy for each characteristic. How did they come to be so important to you? What experiences built up to the point where you’d consider a trait to be essential to your personality?

Finally , you’re going to need to rank your traits and their accompanying genealogies. For some students, who have a very central and defining trait, this won’t be tricky at all. But for students who are less certain what to write about, it will be important to prioritize the traits with the most interesting genealogies. Seeing as you want to show the committee rather than tell them, it’s crucial that you pick a trait that has a compelling history—that fits into a narrative or intellectual picture of yourself. This is especially essential for students intent on taking a more creative tone with this prompt. While an obscure interest can be interesting and endearing, it needs to have a compelling genesis and impact within your personal history.

Here’s an Example Essay for Topic B:

In one of the side streets of Rabat, one of the many winding corridors in the Medina, a long-abandoned house is standing, dilapidated from its years of neglect. The windows have been smashed; valuable materials have been ripped out of the floor and graffiti smears peeling walls. Yet remnants of its old life still remain intact; photo albums clutch family moments as cobwebs dangle from their spines. A mini plastic basketball hoop clings to a wall and a handmade poster above it reads “Senior League: Armond – Junior: Sasha and Lucy” but the faded yellow of the net suggests that no games have been played here for a long time. Not since we left. Mom left him just as I was turning four. The relationship had been emotionally stressful for the past few years and the threat of physical danger forced her to make a secret escape with us. We left everything behind.

Thousands of miles away and thirteen years later, I have never been back. I have never met him. As young as I was, I have not been oblivious to his absence. Even now, there are moments when I experience this emptiness inside of me. A sensation so overwhelming, I can’t believe I have managed to ignore it for so long. I lie down, close my eyes and grieve. Not just for him but for the life I never had, or at least, the one I left behind and can no longer remember. As the tears stop, I slowly drift to sleep. Sometimes I dream that he has unexpectedly turned up on the doorstep of our Chicago house especially for me. I open the door and immediately recognize him. I jump into his arms, simultaneously crying and laughing. I wake up, the empty feeling has passed and I know that he will never come. But I can’t help romanticizing the first time we meet.

However, going on eighteen, reality is soon catching up with me. Four years ago at the age of eighteen my brother, Armond, travelled to Morocco to meet him. Last year my sister, Sasha, did the same. So now, it is my turn; my own rite of passage awaits me. I have been waiting for this opportunity my whole life, even imagined it ten times over. But the more I thought about it, the more I doubted it. As the youngest in the family, I have striven to emulate my siblings in many ways. I could feel the assumption that I would go to meet him just as they did. However, I know that I am not yet ready. Unlike Sasha and Armond, my memories of Rabat are just a haze. I do not know whether they are real, or dreams or stories I have been told. I don’t understand any Arabic, and his English is very broken. And most of all, I cannot remember his face. The emptiness still comes back every now and then. But I know that the hole is not father-shaped, and if I meet him now, he might think it is. What I need to do first is to find out who I am before I can know what shape that hole really is. And when I know, I will understand what it would mean to meet him. For now at least, that tired old home stays suspended; a three-dimensional snapshot of my forgotten childhood. I like to think it’s waiting for me; waiting for when I’m ready to go back.

You’ve got a ticket in your hand – Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?

Topic C stands opposed to Topics A and B in that it is almost entirely oriented towards the future. While each of your essays should demonstrate a degree of imagination, this prompt also carries the most overt call for creativity. There are two main genres of responses to prompts like this. The first genre adds to the forecasting effort found throughout your whole application. The second represents a creative departure from the path of your ambitions.

Choosing a Genre:

Forecasting is what you do when you make promises or predictions about what you’ll do with an educational opportunity. You’re forecasting when you tell UT Austin that you want to attend their engineering program in order to realize your dream of developing clean, public transportation. You’re forecasting when you draw conclusions from your past accomplishments to predict your future success. The act of applying to a school is inherently future-oriented. That being said, good applications demand cohesion and balance. An application that is too future-oriented will leave the admissions officers wondering who exactly you are . An application that is too auto-ethnographic will leave them wondering about your ambitions .

A forecast oriented answer to topic C will likely link-up with other parts of your application. For example, the engineering student from the example above might write that they’re holding a ticket for the very first 100% green, interstate transportation system—a system that they’ve spent the past 15 years building from the ground up. In this case, the essay looks back from a future point in which the student has fulfilled the ambitions they forecasted. It’s also possible to write this essay looking forward. Students that hope to attend medical school or law school might write about holding a “ticket” to their tertiary degree. These essays would go on to imagine the important, transformative work that those students would accomplish when they get to medical/law school.

Here’s an Example Essay for Topic C:

I’m holding a flyer that declares the date and time—this coming Tuesday at 7:30 PM—for a meeting of the Low Carbon Emissions Workers’ Union. Twelve years ago, when I started my undergraduate degree in public policy, the union was only a flicker of a thought, housed somewhere in the back of my mind. Still, those years were crucial. With every class I took, whether in policy studies, environmental science, or history, that flicker grew stronger. Following my interest in labor, I developed a rapport with the university employees that kept things rolling on campus—the people that took care of us, really. For my senior thesis, I made it my mission to collect and present an oral history of labor on campus. Many university workers expressed a sense of relief at being employed by the university. It allowed for decent wages and preserved the dignity of it’s workforce through open dialogue and worker representation. Through this sense of relief—or rather, through its negative—my thesis became invested in the alternatives for these laborers, in what lay on the other side of their relief. Though they were specifically skilled in care work, janitorial work, landscaping, and more, most of them told me that outside the university there was little opportunity for the advancement of worker’s interests. Finding work on a free-lance basis or through predatory placement companies, these care-laborers were largely on their own.

After graduating, I stayed in touch with my contacts at the university. Throughout law school, I made time to continue coordinating with them. We were hatching a revolutionary idea. Our goal was to create a union that could unite the various forms of under-the-radar care-work that was so often left out of organized bargaining units. The plan that we finally realized was even bigger than that. Not only would it unite domestic workers, janitors, and landscapers, its umbrella would extend to cover teachers, day-care supervisors, nurses, artists, and agricultural workers. This was the Low Carbon Emissions Workers’ Union. While it contained specifically oriented compartments, each aimed at advancing the rights of a particular sub-group of laborers, its superstructure was perhaps the more significant. In the same way that my senior thesis became invested in its negative all those years ago, this union stood as a foil to the socially and environmentally destructive tendencies of so many economic giants. We mobilized and housed research regarding Green-GDP, environmentally adjusted Gini coefficients, and other methods aimed at illuminating the real cost of having an economy predicated on environmental exploitation. As a political and intellectual force, the union gained ground in reevaluating the ways in which we value certain kinds of labor over others.

I’m smiling as I tack the flyer to the community board at my old university. I step back to look at it. “I can’t believe this is where it all started,” I think to myself. “Well, see you all this Tuesday.”

The genre of creative departure allows you to focus more on your personality, imagination, and capacity for critical thought. If you feel that your application already does enough to forecast your ambitions, you may opt to write about something completely unrelated. Especially for students applying to creative programs such as theatre or studio art, this can be a good moment to demonstrate your fit. Students who pick this genre can write about almost literally anything. The ticket in your hand could be for a time-machine to the Renaissance, a one-way expedition to Mars, or a mysterious back-alley puppet show. The important thing is that you use the premise of your essay to reflect on the world in a mature and thoughtful manner.

Here’s another Example Essay for Topic C:

“Take a number” buzzes an automated voice from somewhere inside the ticket booth. I reach out and tear off a slip of blue paper. 96. “Great,” I snort, “might as well settle in for the long haul.”

Someone behind me notices my annoyance and pipes up.

“I know right? I’ve never seen the time machines so crowded in my life.”

“Me neither,” I respond, “application season I guess.”

“Must be. Damn ticket prompts.”

I turn around to address my queue-compatriot. He’s a tall guy, pretty built for our age—probably a football player or something. He looks anxiously down the line, craning his neck to see something or someone just out of view.

“What’s got your nerves up?” I ask, “where are you headed?”

“You know,” he shrugged, “the usual. Off to 1904 to encourage Hitler to pursue his passion for painting. I’m just worried she’s gonna get there first.” I stepped out of line to see where he was looking. Fourth in line was a girl decked out in all black, determination etched into her features.

“Is she carrying a rail-gun?” I ask, stepping back into line. Football nods. “Yeesh…that’s a bit extreme but to each their own I guess. Wonder how the AdComms are gonna feel about that.”

Football fidgets for a few minutes before asking, “And you? What’s your plan?”

“Way back. Off to the early fifth-century to help Pelagius argue against St. Augustine.”

“Pelagius. He was an early theologian that rallied against Augustine’s notion of original sin.”

Football nods. “So all that with Eve and the apple, yeah?”

“Exactly. The doctrine of original sin says that because Adam and Eve had the apple, every human from then on was infected with their sin. That’s one of the reasons babies are baptized, to cleanse them. It’s behind a whole host of other things too. All the indulgences that people paid into the church, our long-standing association of sexuality with guilt and impurity, not to mention most of the pessimistic philosophies surrounding human depravity.”

Football chuckles. “So let’s say you win” he proposes, “then what? Babies don’t get baptized? There are still nineteen people ahead of us. You might want to change plans.”

My brow furrows a bit as I consider his suggestion. “I don’t know,” I say, “Pelagius argued for a whole lot of things. He was a big proponent of free will and accountability. He thought we should do good for the sake of good, not for salvation. He even countered a lot of hang-ups that endure to this day—bedroom stuff, bathroom stuff, all of it. Where Augustine saw sin and depravity, Pelagius saw beauty and Grace.” I continue. “I mean, I’m not even religious. I just think we could use a sort of ‘reset’ for our collective psyche. People are too caught up in hating themselves. We’re subconsciously misanthropic and it hurts. It hurts when a corporation takes advantage of a mining community because profit is the only legitimate motive in a world that seems like a lost cause. It hurts all the young people who hate their bodies and strive for an unrealistic ‘cleanliness’ from deformity and irregularity. It hurts women who get told they’ll be ‘second-hand stock’ if they have sex before marriage. It hurts when the police open fire in a neighborhood because they’re scared a kid might do it first.”

“Yeah” he nods, “hey, do you mind if I tag along? Mine might be a lost cause anyways—that girl was scary.”

Just then my number comes up on the time machine’s display. I look up at Football. “Sure. Why not. Oh, and I don’t think I caught your name.”

“It’s Bryan.”

“Well Bryan, we’re off.”

(Please Note: The essay in this section is specific to certain college majors and is not required by all colleges/universities that accept the Apply Texas Application. If you are not applying for a major in Architecture, Art, Art History, Design, Studio Art, Visual Art Studies/Art Education, you are not required to write this essay.)

Personal interaction with objects, images and spaces can be so powerful as to change the way one thinks about particular issues or topics. For your intended area of study (architecture, art history, design, studio art, visual art studies/art education), describe an experience where instruction in that area or your personal interaction with an object, image or space affected this type of change in your thinking. What did you do to act upon your new thinking and what have you done to prepare yourself for further study in this area?”

Topic D is a situational prompt for students looking to engage with art, design, and image. Unlike topics A and B, topic D is specifically asking you to tell a story. Regardless of the mode of narrative you employ, your essay should start with a moment of confrontation, observation, and reaction. Whether you engage with a piece of art or a lecture from design class, this step is crucial. It is here that you will demonstrate your ability to sift through your feelings about art, pulling out the concrete variables and specific vocabularies to describe why the art made you feel that way in the first place. It’s unsurprising that the prompt is so intent on drawing this out from you—understanding how art has impacted you is the first step towards creating art to impact others.

The second part of this process should move you beyond the moment of interaction detailed in step one, either to the present or the future. In this section, you’ll want to set your compass, so to speak. Using the lessons from part one, you should forecast the ways in which your future ambitions will be uniquely impactful. This can include anything from aperture to allegory. Whether technical or philosophical, your art is largely a product of your inspiration—being able to trace and predict this link demonstrates your maturity as a budding artist or designer.

Here’s an Example Essay for Topic D:

Standing in the Musée de l’Orangerie, surrounded on all sides by Monet’s Water Lilies, I felt myself melt away. The noise of the room seemed to dim, even as my perception heightened. I was somewhere else. The water lilies had swallowed me whole. They were beautiful, certainly, but also tense. One of the lesser-known iterations, flush with the purples, golds, and oranges of autumn, reminded me of the fluttering dance of falling leaves. And yet, its leaves were static—not because they weren’t real; they were real to me in that moment—but because of the water’s tension. Tethered to the surface of the pond, equally unable to float up or down, the leaves were trapped in a planar prison. The painting was practically bursting with the energy of an infinite autumn, but the water held it all together with its sticky buoyancy. Surface tension is far crueler than gravity, I thought to myself. My throat tightened and I felt paralyzed, peacefully imprisoned along with the lilies and leaves.

“Huh.” My brother stepped up beside me. “Look, you can see the canvas poking through,” he whispered, nudging me. He was right. As my eyes latched onto those bare fibers I felt a gust of release; I was back in the room.

To this day, that remains one of my most intense experiences with art. While it wasn’t exactly euphoric, it was transformative. Spanning the whole wall, the water lilies are all you can see; they colonize your reality. It was that quality—the quality of transportation out of time and space—that has stayed with me most. Monet’s techniques, brushstrokes that infuse the canvas with texture and momentum, allowed for a sort of virtual reality. VR before VR. It was the power of that experience that prompted me to combine my art with contemporary VR techniques. My first VR project pays homage to the water lilies. Putting on the headset, you find yourself in a blue green film, replete with flowers of every kind. It’s peaceful but when you try to move you find that the further you stray, the slower you get. A few feet out and you’re snapped back to the start. The piece explores movement and energy through anxiety and ensnarement.

As I continue my education in fine art, I’m primed to explore the range of possibilities allowed by VR technology. I’m eager to create landscape experiences that more directly implicate art and embodiment. My current project also takes inspiration from Monet’s impressionism. Entering the reality, one finds oneself on the top of flower-freckled hillside, umbrella in hand despite the blue skies. It is windy and the grasses sway around you. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, you begin to blow away, to disperse, until there’s nothing left. The viewer is utterly gone, yet utterly present.

Want to learn more about how to write the ApplyTexas essays? Check out one of our popular recorded live streams on this topic.

Where to Get Your ApplyTexas Essays Edited

Do you want feedback on your ApplyTexas essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools.  Find the right advisor for you  to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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Apply Texas Essays 2022‒2023

Apply texas essays 2023.

If you live in Texas or plan on applying to schools there, it’s likely that you’ve heard of the Apply Texas portal . At Texas schools, the Apply Texas essays are an important part of the application process. In fact, the Apply Texas essays are the best way to let your personality, experiences, and interests impress admissions teams. 

In many ways, Apply Texas—including the Apply Texas essays—resembles the Common Application. So, you can likely repurpose plenty of information from the Common Application as you complete the Apply Texas application. 

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to tackle each of the Apply Texas essays. We’ll discuss:

• General information about the Apply Texas portal 
• How to respond to each of the Apply Texas essay prompts
• Different Texas college requirements
• The importance of the Apply Texas essays
• More useful essay resources from CollegeAdvisor

Now, let’s start our deep dive into the Apply Texas essays. But first, let’s talk about the Apply Texas application more broadly. 

What is Apply Texas?

Apply Texas is a college application portal where students can apply to higher education institutes in Texas. The portal was created in order to allow students to fill out one application for all Texas schools. Students will create an Apply Texas login in order to access their applications. 

However, while many of the best colleges in Texas require an Apply Texas login to complete their application, some don’t. So, make sure to check the application requirements for every school. 

Apply Texas essay vs. the Common Application essay

You may be wondering, what’s the difference between the Apply Texas essay and the Common Application essay? Well, logically, Apply Texas can only be used to apply to schools in the state of Texas. However, some Texas schools may also accept applications through the Common Application or Coalition Application. If that’s the case, then you can decide which portal to use. 

Overall, the Apply Texas essay format is similar to the Common Application essay format. This means that many of the tools you’ve used for your Common Application essay will help you complete your Apply Texas essays. You can also look at Common App essay examples to help you write the Apply Texas essays. 

Understanding the Apply Texas essay requirements

Different schools will have different requirements when it comes to the Apply Texas essay prompts. Some schools may not even require an essay at all. 

For example, Texas State University applicants will complete their applications using the Apply Texas login. While Texas State only lists their essay as “highly recommended,” you should still complete it. You can also check out some Apply Texas essays examples to bolster your application. 

The Apply Texas application also has its own unique Apply Texas essay prompts, which differ from the prompts on the Common App. So, while you might be able to repurpose your Common App essay for one of the Apply Texas essay prompts, you should think carefully about your choice of topic. 

What schools use Apply Texas?

Many two- and four-year universities in Texas use Apply Texas. This includes the majority of public universities as well as some private colleges. 

However, you should always double-check each school’s admissions site to see which application portal you should use. Each school’s requirements will vary. 

You can use Apply Texas to apply to some of the best colleges in Texas , including UT Austin and Texas A&M University. However, Rice University—the top college in Texas, according to U.S. News—does not use Apply Texas. 

Understanding the Apply Texas essay format

If you’re planning to apply to multiple Texas schools, you should create an Apply Texas login. However, all schools’ requirements will be different. This means the Apply Texas essay format could slightly vary.

While you’ll find one Apply Texas essay word limit on the application itself, different schools will recommend different word counts. You may also not complete all of the Apply Texas essays for every school.

So, top Texas universities such as the University of Houston , Texas Tech , and TCU will have slightly different requirements, even though you’ll use the same Apply Texas login to access their applications. Use our College Search Feature below to learn more about each school’s unique features!

What are the Apply Texas essays?

Next, let’s check out the Apply Texas essays. 

There are three Apply Texas essay prompts. You’ll complete different Apply Texas essays depending on which schools you apply to. For example, some schools may require that students respond to the Apply Texas essay A, while others may let you choose your prompt.  

Below, we’ve provided a chart with each of the Apply Texas essay prompts. 

Applicants should also note that Apply Texas word limits will vary by school. In this chart, we’ve provided the word limit suggested by the portal itself. However, you should adapt your word count to each university’s requirements. 

Remember to consider school supplements 

Additionally, note that some universities will require other short essays as well as one of the Apply Texas essay prompts. 

For example, the UT Austin application will differ from the Baylor application even though both will use an Apply Texas login. Likewise, the UT Austin application requirements aren’t exactly the same as the UT Dallas application requirements. So, always be sure to double-check the admissions sites for school specifics. 

Before tackling your Apply Texas essays, try to read some Apply Texas essays examples. This will give you an idea of the different ways to approach the essay. The Apply Texas essay format can vary, so looking at Apply Texas essays examples can help you think outside of the box. 

How long should Apply Texas essays be?

As you tackle the Apply Texas essays, you should keep the word count in mind. According to the Apply Texas application portal, you have 800 words for each of your essays. 

However, when it comes to the word limit, you’ll want to see what each university requires or recommends. Every school’s requirements will be different. 

Let’s check out a couple of schools in Texas and compare their approach to their Apply Texas essay word limit. 

The University of Texas Austin requires its applicants to respond to Apply Texas Essay A if using the Apply Texas application. Their word limit is 500-700. Additionally, students will complete three required short answer essays with word limits of 250-300 words. They can also choose to complete a fourth optional essay (also 250-300 words). 

Alternatively, Texas Tech does not require applicants to complete an essay. However, the essay is “highly recommended.” So, as usual, consider this optional essay a requirement. If using the Apply Texas application, Texas Tech gives students the option to respond to Apply Texas Essay A or B. They have placed a 500-word limit on this essay. Check out some tips from Texas Tech admissions to write your Apply Texas essays. 

Texas Christian University

The TCU admissions office requires applicants to complete one essay. However, which of the Apply Texas essays students write is up to them. The word limit is 300-500 words, so you’ll need to impress TCU admissions with a concise, authentic, and passionate essay. 

As you begin your Apply Texas essays, check out Common App essay examples and Apply Texas essays examples to help you prepare.

Apply Texas Essay A

Tell us your story. what unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today.

The Apply Texas Essay A seems to be the overwhelming favorite among universities using the Apply Texas essays. This prompt asks students to “tell us your story.” Simple enough, right? 

Of course, a prompt this broad can feel overwhelming. However, it’s a great opportunity to show admissions who you are. This is your chance to really make your application stand out by sharing something that you haven’t yet revealed (or expanded upon) in other parts of your Apply Texas application. 

This prompt is quite similar to one of the Common Application prompts. So, if you want some inspiration, you can check out Common App essay examples. 

Which Texas colleges require it?

Surprisingly, many universities in Texas do not require applicants to submit an essay. However, if a school includes an “optional” essay requirement, you should still submit one. The Apply Texas essays are a great way to stand out and enrich your application narrative. 

That being said, some universities in Texas do require applicants to submit Apply Texas Essay A. For instance, Texas A&M requires applicants to respond to Apply Texas Essay A. And, as we mentioned, the UT Austin application also requires Apply Texas Essay A.  

Remember, while going through the Apply Texas application, double-check the essay requirements. They will vary depending on each school. 

How to write Apply Texas Essay A

Like many college essays, Apply Texas Essay A asks you to share experiences that have made you who you are. Whether you have a million ideas or are drawing a complete blank, don’t worry. We’re here to help.

Let’s check out the best way to respond to Apply Texas Essay A.

You could probably tell many stories. Apply Texas Essay A asks you to share just one. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation. 

So, think about significant moments in your life. It could be easier to focus on the last few years, as you’ve probably grown a lot throughout high school. 

Make a list of moments that have changed or shaped you as a person. No moment is too small to include. As long as it shows some growth—and you can write authentically and passionately about it—then it’s a good topic. 

Answer the prompt completely

Now, the prompt mentions an opportunity or challenge. Don’t blatantly point out this in your draft by stating “this was a huge challenge/opportunity.” Most likely, if you’ve chosen a story that shows your personal growth, then it’s probably an opportunity or challenge. And, if you tell your story well, this will come through. 

You will need to clearly show how that moment that you’re sharing has shaped who you are today. For example, let’s say that you want to discuss the day you went to your first protest. From that moment forward you’ve been passionate about activism. That clearly shows how pivotal this moment was in your life. Maybe it’s even shaped what you’d like to study or your future career. 

Remember to research your school, too. Well-written Apply Texas essays will be specific to each individual school. For example, if writing an essay for Southern Methodist University , check out their specific programs and offerings. Even though this isn’t a “why school” essay, you can still link your interests and growth to the school.

Write passionately

This isn’t the time to write vague statements that could apply to any high school student. Your story should be unique to you. Make sure to choose your topic wisely to highlight your passion and authenticity. 

Don’t be afraid to get creative. Set the scene. Remember that it’s much more impactful to show rather than tell when writing. If we continue with our protest example, you might open your essay by describing the atmosphere using descriptive language that puts the reader right there with you. Then, you can reflect back on how this moment has affected you to date. 

Apply Texas Essays – Topic B

While a few schools require applicants to answer the Apply Texas essay A, some may ask you to choose which essay to respond to. Let’s review the second of the Apply Texas essay prompts:

Some students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. If you are one of these students, then tell us about yourself.

Again, the goal of this prompt, like all of the Apply Texas essays, is to let you show each school what makes you unique. You should also aim to relate it back to your aspirations. For example, how does who you are shape what you want in your future?

Approaching Apply Texas Essay B

Topic B asks you to explore a part of your identity. Is there something you can point out that shows your values, character, and personality?

For example, maybe you’ve been dancing ballet since you started walking. Maybe it’s become a form of meditation or a way for you to express yourself. Perhaps it’s taught you discipline. It doesn’t matter how it’s shaped you (although it should be in a positive way)—you just need to show how it has impacted you. 

If you decide to focus on an “identity” instead of an “interest,” then you’ve got even more options to choose from. You can choose to highlight your background, experiences, family, values, or other key features. 

Overall, your topic should be unique to you. And, again, don’t be afraid to get creative in writing this essay. Your Apply Texas essays shouldn’t read like a resume; they should be engaging while still answering the prompt. 

Apply Texas Essay Prompts – Topic C

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a university that requires students to respond to the last of the Apply Texas essays. However, you may be given the option of which Apply Texas essay prompts you’d like to respond to. So, let’s check out Essay C.

You’ve got a ticket in your hand – Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?

You may notice that this essay seems quite different from the other Apply Texas essays—it gives you a lot more freedom. So, you can really dive into the creativity of this topic. However, remember to not get too carried away and forget that, in the end, you’re still writing a college essay. The main goal, like the other Apply Texas essay prompts, is to show who you are as a person and an applicant. 

Crafting a response to Essay C

For Essay C, your process doesn’t have to be wildly different than it was for the other Apply Texas essay prompts. First, decide what you’ll write about. Start by brainstorming options if nothing comes to mind right away. 

Maybe you have a topic in mind immediately. That’s great! If you can write passionately about your ticket destination and activity, then that’s the topic for you.

Once again, get creative. You could go to a magical land, back in time, outer space, or to a remote island. The ticket and the destination don’t matter—it’s what they show about who you are. 

Most importantly, make sure to tie in your career goals or future aspirations. How will this trip impact you and your future? What experience will you have that will shape you?

Exploring Texas college’s essay requirements

When it comes to factors such as the Apply Texas essay word limit or Apply Texas essay prompts, requirements will vary by school. While the general Apply Texas application will be the same, the Apply Texas essay format will be different. Namely, each school will request different Apply Texas essay prompts. 

Let’s look at some of the essay requirements for the best colleges in Texas:

As you can see, while the Apply Texas application is uniform, the essay requirements vary greatly by school. For instance, you’ll see the Apply Texas essays for the Baylor application vs the University of Houston application are not the same. So, always double-check with your university’s admissions sites for all requirements. 

And, don’t forget, when it comes to “optional” essays, treat them as though they are required. While Texas A&M admissions requires an essay, Texas Tech does not. However, strong essays will impress both Texas Tech and Texas A&M admissions. After all, Apply Texas essays are the best way for schools to get to know you better. 

How important are the Apply Texas essays?

When it comes to the admissions process, the Apply Texas essays are extremely important. In general, college essays let applicants share a part of their personality that they haven’t highlighted elsewhere in their application. 

Additionally, most schools use a holistic admissions approach when evaluating students. That means that they review all parts of the application: GPA, essays, extracurricular activities, recommendations, and more. In fact, with more schools going test-optional, essays are an even more significant piece of your application puzzle. 

All to say: strong Apply Texas essays can make a huge difference. So, give yourself ample time to write them.

5 Tips to Make Your Apply Texas Essays Stand Out

Since the Apply Texas essays are so important in the admissions process, you’ll want to do everything you can to make yours stand out. 

5 tips to write Apply Texas essays that impress 

1. meet the requirements.

This may seem obvious, but you need to make sure that you understand the requirements for each school. Double-check the word counts and requirements for each to make sure that you hit all targets. 

2. Choose a topic carefully

Your topic is the most important part of the process. If you choose a topic that you aren’t authentically passionate about, it will show. Don’t think about what admissions wants to hear. Instead, choose a topic that you can easily write about. Then go back and fine-tune your essay to answer every aspect of the prompt. 

3. Get creative

Your Apply Texas essays should be engaging and unique. Don’t feel like you need to stick to a certain format. Set the scene and capture your audience. This is your opportunity to show who you are as well as your writing chops. So, as long as you answer each prompt fully, get as creative as you’d like!

4. Show personal growth

Your Apply Texas essays should show how you’ve evolved. Ideally, you should connect your personal growth to future aspirations in college and beyond. No matter the prompt, this is your opportunity to shine. These are college essays, so you want to show what you’ll bring to campus with your responses. 

5. Start early!

The last thing you want to do when it comes to your Apply Texas essays is wait until the last minute. Creating impactful essays will take time. You’ll brainstorm, draft, edit, and redraft. You should also leave enough time to have someone else proofread your essay for mechanical errors. Likewise, if they don’t understand the narrative, you’ll want to rework your story and message so that it makes sense to a reader. 

Apply Texas Essays & More Essay Resources from CollegeAdvisor

Writing the Apply Texas essays can feel overwhelming. That’s why we’ve compiled many essay resources to help you create your best essays. While admissions requirements and essay prompts will change, the overall goal of your college essays stays the same: show admissions who you are and why you belong at that university. 

Before writing essays, you’ll also want to research specifics about the school. We have college pages that outline acceptance rates, enrollment, majors, and more to give you some quick facts on different schools in Texas. To jumpstart your research, check out the Baylor University , Texas A&M University , and University of Texas Austin pages . However, make sure to also do a deep dive into each university’s website to learn more about specific programs and campus life. 

Essay guides and other resources

Follow up by checking out our essay guides. These guides are specific to individual universities. You may even find it helpful to look at past essay guides such as our Baylor , Texas A&M , or UT Austin essay guides. Again, while prompts may change, the end goal of the essays stays the same. 

Additionally, check out the most recent guides such as this 2022-2023 Texas Christian University guide for the most up-to-date tips on making your essays stand out to TCU admissions. Looking at example essays can also help you get inspired. 

CollegeAdvisor has a wealth of resources to help you on your college journey. No matter if you’re trying to create the best Baylor application or impress Texas A&M admissions, our team can help. For expert guidance on the Apply Texas essays and more, schedule a meeting with our team here .

This essay guide was written by Sarah Kaminski. Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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How to Respond to the ApplyTexas Essay Prompts

Cece Gilmore is a Content Writer at Scholarships360. Cece earned her undergraduate degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from Arizona State University. While at ASU, she was the education editor as well as a published staff reporter at Downtown Devil. Cece was also the co-host of her own radio show on Blaze Radio ASU.

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If you are looking to use ApplyTexas to apply to multiple Texas universities, you have come to the right place. The ApplyTexas essay prompts are a crucial part of the application, and we will walk you through them step-by-step in this guide.

ApplyTexas is a common application form used by most Texas public universities and a few private Texas universities. The ApplyTexas website is a good source for determining if the ApplyTexas application is accepted by your dream Texas school. When filling out the application, there are a few ApplyTexas essay prompts applicants need to fill out. 

Here’s our guide for how to ace each ApplyTexas essay prompts on the application.

Related: Scholarships360’s free scholarship search tool

“Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?” (500-750 words)

This prompt essentially wants to know what events or experiences in high school shaped you into the person you are today. Focus on what you believe to be the biggest impact on your life. Make sure to focus on you . 

Try and choose one to two main life-shaping events that occurred in high school. Be sure that they are specific! Try to zero in on something unique that you were able to participate in or that you overcame. For example, perhaps you sadly lost someone you love due to a disease that inspired you to enter into the medical field. Or perhaps working at an ice cream shop made you realize how much you love customer service. While these are two different life experiences, both show self-awareness and growth. The main goal of writing these supplemental essays is to allow the reader to get to know you and what makes you unique. 

After describing these events, now turn the focus to you! How did you use these opportunities to thrive into the stand-out person you are today? Make sure to clearly link your environment in high school to some prominent traits you now possess.

Questions to consider: 

• How did your particular environment and experiences make you special? 
• What challenges or opportunities have you encountered? 
• How did you overcome these challenges or take these opportunities head on? 

Don’t miss: How many schools should I apply to?

“Most students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. Tell us about yourself.” (500-750 words)

Define what that unique trait you have is! It can be a piece of your identity, an interest or even a talent. Brainstorm ideas of things that make you so different from everyone else.

Describe this trait or thing that makes you so unique in a story-telling manner. Be creative! Do not just state what makes you unique, but describe it instead. This is the time to make yourself stand apart as a unique individual. Maybe you are an experienced photographer and taking pictures is your passion. Was there a special person who taught you how to take pictures? Do you turn towards a famous photographer for inspiration? Who gave you your first camera? The keys to getting to know the real you are found within your responses. The “why” is what drives the reader to understand the real personable you. 

Be sure to choose a positive trait that makes you look good! Remember this is going to colleges that you want to attend. You want to draw them in, but you also want to make a good impression. So, keep it appropriate and mature, but also creative! 

Once you have determined and written about your special trait, write about how this “piece of you” defines you! You need to contextualize this trait to the rest of your personality and life. How does this one aspect of you make you who you are? 

• What makes you unique from others?
• If you were thrown onto a stage for a talent show what would you perform? 
• How does this unique trait align with your aspirations and identity? 

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“You’ve got a ticket in your hand – Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?” (500-750 words)

This is a fun prompt that gives you plenty of creative freedom in your response. However, remember that this is going to be sent to a college that you want to attend! Therefore, use this essay to show off your career and long-term goals. 

To be extremely creative, realize that this prompt just states a “ticket,” but does not specify what kind of ticket. Most applicants may immediately think of a plane ticket, but this is your response! Therefore, the “ticket” can be a ticket to medical school, a ticket to a fantasy world where everyone wears fedoras or a ticket to your grandfather’s house. The creativity is endless! 

The most important part of this answer is your ability to justify where you are going with this ticket. You want to be able to show that you have goals for your life. Prove that having this metaphorical opportunity to have a magical ticket will allow you to succeed and reach some of your goals. 

No matter how creative a college essay question is, you always want to make sure you are revealing pieces of your personality. Throughout your response, make sure to be describing yourself and your personal goals. 

Questions to consider:  

• Is there a destination you have always wanted to go to? 
• If money was not an issue, where would you go? 
• What are your aspirations for the future and where would you go to make these aspirations a reality? 

Also see: How to choose financial safety, reach, and match schools

“Personal interaction with objects, images and spaces can be so powerful as to change the way one thinks about particular issues or topics. For your intended area of study (architecture, art history, design, studio art, visual art studies/art education), describe an experience where instruction in that area or your personal interaction with an object, image or space effected this type of change in your thinking. What did you do to act upon your new thinking and what have you done to prepare yourself for further study in this area?” (500-750 words)

This essay option is specific for certain majors. Therefore, if you are not applying as a major in architecture, art, art history, design, studio art, visual art studies, or art education, then you are not required to answer this question. 

To begin responding to this essay prompt, begin with a moment of observation you have experienced that changed your thinking. This could be an instance during an art class when a piece was first taught to you or a time when you stumbled upon a piece of art in a gallery. Whatever the experience you had, make sure that you select a point in time where the observation of an object, image or space really made you contemplate. 

After you have described this moment, it is important to list specific details of the piece as well as accurately describe your own emotions while viewing the piece. 

Some questions to consider

• What type of emotion did the art make you feel? 
• Why did the art make you feel some type of emotion?
• What changed in your thinking? 

After describing how your view changed, it is then important to connect back to the future. How will you use what you learned from this experience in your life going forward? It is important to reveal that the lessons learned from this moving experience will stick with you throughout your life.

Also see: How to get in-state tuition as an out-of-state student

Which colleges require which ApplyTexas essays? 

Every Texas university has slightly different essay requirements from the ApplyTexas essay prompt list. For full information, you must create an ApplyTexas account and review the specific requirements. Here are a few Texas colleges and their particular requirements on the ApplyTexas application: 

Baylor University

• Essay A, B and C are optional

Southern Methodist University

• Essay B – optional

Texas A&M University, College Station

Texas christian university, university of texas at austin.

• Essay A 

Next steps after responding to the ApplyTexas essay prompts

Now that the hard part is over, and your ApplyTexas essay prompts are flawless – take a deep breath! 

The different Texas universities found under the ApplyTexas application will have slightly different requirements when it comes to which essay prompt responses they select. Each Texas school will require a different combination of the above three essay-prompts or even all three. In fact, some schools will even have additional prompts of their own. 

Texas universities use these prompts for not only admission, but for selecting students to award scholarships to as well. Therefore, it is crucial to put effort into your essay prompt responses! 

If your dream college also accepts the Common Application, check out our guide on how to answer the 2021-2022 Common App essay prompts to see whether they would be a better fit for you.

Don’t miss: Top Texas scholarships

Additional resources

In addition to prompt-specific advice, it’s a good idea to examine your general writing technique when it comes time to draft your college essays. Check out our guides on how to write an essay about yourself , how to write 250 and 500-word essays, and our general guide for rocking college applications . We can also help you decide how many schools to apply to and how to find safety, reach, and match schools .If you’re wondering whether to send test scores to test-optional schools , we’ve got a guide for that as well. And once you start hearing back, we can help you create a college comparison spreadsheet to make your college choice. Finally, check out our free scholarship search tool to help fund your education and keep all of your college options open. Good luck!

Frequently asked questions about ApplyTexas 

How do i get a waiver for applytexas, does ut austin prefer the applytexas or coalition application, what colleges can you apply to with applytexas, scholarships360 recommended.

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The Admissions Strategist

How to write the university of texas essays 2020-2021: the applytexas guide.

The University of Texas is a public research university located in Austin, Texas, with an acceptance rate of 40%.

One of the largest schools in the nation , UT is divided into 18 schools and colleges. It offers over 900 clubs and organizations, hundreds of study abroad programs, nationally ranked sports teams, and more.

If that sounds like your kind of school, you’ll first have to make it past the admissions process. While your GPA, SAT scores, and other accomplishments are important, your essays also offer a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

In this article, we’ll help you capitalize on that opportunity by providing tips, ideas, and inspiration for writing the University of Texas essays.

Let’s get started!

What Are the University of Texas Supplemental Essays?

The University of Texas uses the ApplyTexas application, a common application accepted by Texas public universities and some private Texas universities.

Along with this application, you must submit at least one essay and three short answer questions.

UT’s required supplemental essay is fairly long, at 500-700 words or 2-3 paragraphs. All applicants must write their essay addressing this prompt:

Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?

Some majors and schools within the University of Texas require additional supplemental essays. These prompts are listed below, along with the school or major they relate to:  

UT School of Art and Art History:

In 500 words or less, please tell us about a meaningful way in which an artwork, or artist, has changed your life. How has this prompted your ambitions for a life in the arts?

UT Nursing Majors:

Discuss the factors that have influenced your desire to pursue a career in Nursing. How have your academic and extracurricular activities prepared you to pursue a degree in Nursing?

UT School of Architecture:

What are the ways you explore and express your creativity? Please limit your response to 250-300 words. Take and upload up to three photographs from a camera, smart phone or mobile device that capture how you see the world. Describe what you are trying to evoke with these images. Please limit your response to 50–75 words.

Steve Hicks School of Social Work:

Discuss the reasons you chose Social Work as your first-choice major and how a Social Work degree from UT will prepare you for the future.

Once you’ve responded to your main essay as well as any applicable major or school-specific prompts, you will need to respond to three short-answer questions, and you’ll have the option to answer one more.

U Texas Required Short-Answer Questions:

These are listed as short-answer questions, but they are more similar to the regular essays required by most college applications. They should be no longer than 40 lines, which is equivalent to 1 paragraph or 250-300 words.

Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major? Leadership can be demonstrated in many ways. Please share how you have demonstrated leadership in either your school, job, community, and/or within your family responsibilities. Please share how you believe your experiences, perspectives, and/or talents have shaped your ability to contribute to and enrich the learning environment at UT Austin, both in and out of the classroom.

U Texas Optional Supplemental Essay Question:

Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance, including the possible effects of COVID-19. Please limit your response to 250-300 words.

General Tips for the University of Texas Supplemental Essays

When you look over most of your ApplyTexas application, you’ll see a lot of numbers. These numbers include SAT scores, GPA, your class rank, the years you’ve been involved in various activities, and so on.

Perhaps these numbers capture your achievements over the four years of high school, but do they form an accurate picture of you ?

Probably not; and that’s where the essays come in.

These essays will help admissions officers at UT get to know who you are beyond the numbers and statistics. They’ll get to know your personality, values, and goals. They’ll learn about where you come from and what has shaped or influenced you.

Keeping this purpose in mind, make sure that you’re honest in your essays and write in your own voice. The essays should “sound” like you and should address ideas and experiences that you find meaningful. Use specific details to make your essays interesting and memorable.

Try to be reflective and insightful, indicating that you’re a mature student who will thrive in a college environment.

Also, be sure to carefully edit and revise your essays, preferably getting feedback from a few trusted teachers, family members, or peers. You want to make a good impression; Spelling and grammar errors aren’t the way to accomplish that!

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s take an in-depth look at each of UT’s essays and short answer questions.

Get personalized advice!

Required university of texas supplemental essay.

When you first look into this prompt, you may feel surprised or overwhelmed by the required word count. UT states that this essay should be between 500 and 700 words, which is much longer than the typical college application essay.

However, instead of feeling uncertain, try to get excited. It may be a longer essay, but that means you’ve got more space to show the University of Texas admissions team who you are and why you belong in their upcoming freshman class.

It’s also an interesting prompt because it starts broad and later gets more specific. “Tell us your story” is about as broad as essays can get. Then, however, you find out what UT really wants to hear about is the challenges you’ve faced so far in life.

Take these two questions and bring them together into one; What are some challenges you’ve faced that have turned you into the person you are today?

UT doesn’t necessarily want to hear the happy, upbeat parts of your story, they want to hear the hard stuff. They want to see what you’ve overcome.

Start by brainstorming the aspects of your story you’d like to address.

• Have you gone through something challenging that significantly impacted your life?
• If not, think of some small things: Make a list of tough classes, write about when you moved to a new town and had to start over by making new friends in a new school, or even describe some of the difficult aspects of your life at home.

It doesn’t matter if these challenges are big or small; UT simply wants to see that you’ve overcome them and they’ve shaped you into the person you are today.

Once you have your challenges, take some time to examine yourself.

How did these difficulties affect your life? How did they change the person you’ve become?

• Did they make you more resilient?
• Did they teach you to never give up?
• Did they give you the motivation you need to work hard and make a difference in the world around you through your future career?

Look into who you are deeply, and don’t be afraid to be a little creative.

If you’re still stumped on how these events have changed you, ask a family member or close friend. If they watched you push through, they likely saw the change before you even began to notice it.

You may also be able to find inspiration by reading through old diaries, digging around in your attic or basement, or taking a drive through your neighborhood or town.

Use vivid, specific details to describe your experience. Allow the admissions team to feel as if they’re going through the challenge right alongside you.

Then, dig even deeper:

• How did you mature or grow as a result?
• What life lessons did you learn?
• What elements of your personality were shaped by this experience?

No matter what challenges you write about, be sure to write your essay from a meaningful and authentic point of view. Take time to show the University of texas admissions team who you are and what makes you special.

If you write from your heart and show UT who you are, your essay is sure to impress.

UT School of Art and Art History Supplemental Essay

For the first part of this prompt, you should showcase your passion for  art history, visual art, or another intended area of study.

• Have you had a powerful experience while viewing a specific art piece or artist’s work?
• How did this experience shape you as an individual and/or an artist?
• How did it change your life as a whole?

We’re talking about art here, so be descriptive!

Start by choosing your art piece or artist, and explain what you felt when you first saw or experienced it.

Then, explain the impact it has had on your life.

Maybe it’s affected who you are as an artist by compelling you to turn your hobby into a career:

• Have you taken studio classes, completed an internship, or independently worked on relevant projects?
• What do you plan to do at UT to continue exploring this interest?

Maybe it’s simply taught you about who you are.

No matter how the art piece or artist has changed your life, be sure to paint an image of your experience through your words. Be sincere, and show UT that you have a true passion for the arts.

They want to see that art has truly made you who you are today, and that you’re serious about your future in the creative world.

UT Nursing Majors

Prompt #1: Discuss the factors that have influenced your desire to pursue a career in Nursing.

For your first nursing-specific essay, think about experiences or other factors you’ve already had that have prepared you to be a good nurse.

• Have you always been interested in the Human Body and how it works?
• Did you have an amazing nurse at one point in your life, and you’ve wanted to follow in their footsteps ever since?
• Have you had a family member experience a medical challenge, and what to give back through a career in nursing?

You may want to tie UT’s Nursing program specifically into your answer:

• Research opportunities, professors, or classes you’d like to be part of, and mention how these specific programs or experiences can help you reach your goals.
• Be sure that your tone is enthusiastic and excited.

You should also take the time to clearly express your goals in nursing.

• Is there a specific population you’d like to work with or something in particular that you’d like to achieve? Why?

By showing UT that you’ve got good reason to desire a future as a nurse (and that you’re sure to make a good one) you’ve got a much better chance at being accepted into the program.

Prompt #2: How have your academic and extracurricular activities prepared you to pursue a degree in Nursing?

While brainstorming your response to this prompt, consider your past nursing-related academic or extracurricular experiences:

• Do you have clinical experience?
• Research experience?
• Volunteer work you’ve done?
• If not, any experience working with people and/or demonstrating compassion could suffice.

You’ll want to show UT that you’re dedicated to this career path, and show that you’ve already taken concrete steps to introduce yourself to the field.

U Texas School of Architecture

Prompt #1: What are the ways you explore and express your creativity? Please limit your response to 250-300 words.

This sounds like a simple question, but its broad origin makes it more challenging that other essay prompts.

Since this question is so broad, you’ll want to break it down to find your inspiration.

First, how do you explore your creativity?

• What gives you your inspiration?
• How do you come up with new ideas?
• Where does your passion for architecture lie?

Think hard about where your creativity comes from, and let UT know. Don’t worry if it’s not the most amazing place; they want you to be honest and authentic.

Next, talk about how you express your creativity.

Once you get a new idea, how do you get it out?

Does it steam for a while, or do you stay up all night until you have the entire plan on a page in front of your own eyes?

• Do you free-write to get all of your ideas down on paper?
• Do you grab a sketchbook and start to draw?
• Maybe you’re a 3D builder, and love creating models of future works you’d like to accomplish

Remember once again to be honest and authentic.

At the same time, be sure to fill your response with detail. Write in a way that gets the U admissions team excited about the creativity you’ve got inside of you. Show them how passionate you are and how you’re simply made for a future in architecture.

Prompt #2: Take and upload up to three photographs from a camera, smart phone or mobile device that capture how you see the world. Describe what you are trying to evoke with these images. Please limit your response to 50–75 words.

This is an interesting prompt because it requires photos, so it’s almost more similar to a portfolio submission.

However, it includes a write-up, so we want to support you through your response.

When you set out to take your pictures, be intentional. Keep in mind that you’ll have to write something that is both short and impressive when your done (and it needs to relate specifically to the pictures you take).

When you start writing, try a free-write to get the process going.

Write down everything you have to say about your images, and underlying the best things that come to you.

Take those best pieces of information, and make them as direct and compact as possible.

With only 50-75 words, everything you put on that final page needs to count.

Steve Hicks School of Social Work

This question is simple: Why social work, and why UT?

• Have you had experiences working with others to help them overcome challenges, such as being a tutor or volunteering at a soup kitchen?
• Can you demonstrate that you’re an empathetic, compassionate, and resilient individual?
• Try using an anecdote to describe why you’re so interested in social work—and why you would make a great social worker.

For the second half of the question, you may need to do some research on UT’s social work program.

• Look into classes, professors, opportunities, and other resources.
• What most excites you about this program?
• What opportunities will you take advantage of?
• How will these experiences prepare you for a career as a social worker?

An essay that shows passion for social work and commitment through understanding UT’s social work program is sure to stand out.

UT Supplemental Required Short Answers

Remember, every UT applicant will answer at least three short-answer questions. Responses are limited to 250-300 words.

Short Answer #1: Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?

Don’t panic if you’re not completely sure what you want to do after college yet.

• Is there a field you’re interested in exploring?
• A career path you think you want to pursue?
• Just choose something that interests you, and explain why you can see yourself working in this field.

Even if you have several possible careers in mind, remember that you only have 300 words. It’s best if you choose just one to focus on for the purpose of this essay. Get right to the point.

Even though you’ve only got 300 words, you still want to make sure UT has the chance to get to know you better through this essay. Be sure to include some information that sheds light on who you are and why you’re passionate about your potential future major:

• Can you think of one particular moment or event that helped you decide on a career or academic path?
• If so, this is a perfect place to narrate that anecdote for admissions officers.
• Alternatively, perhaps there are several reasons you’ve become fascinated with a certain career. You can mention them here, but be sure to include specific details!

If you’ve spent time outside of school volunteering, researching, or exploring your selected career, mention it. Your essay should convey passion, excitement, and genuine interest in the career you’ve chosen to discuss.

Short Answer #2: Leadership can be demonstrated in many ways. Please share how you have demonstrated leadership in either your school, job, community, and/or within your family responsibilities.

Colleges these days aren’t looking for just any student, and UT is no exception. This essay prompt shows that the University of Texas is seeking leaders to join their upcoming freshman class.

What have you done to lead in the past?

• Have you held a chair position in Student Council?
• Were you the captain of the basketball team?
• Maybe you started and lead your own language learning club

Remember that these leadership roles do not have to relate directly to school or academics:

• Are you an older sibling who has helped raise your brothers and sisters?
• Have you filled in for your manager at your weekend job?

It doesn’t matter where the role was, UT just wants to see that you’ve got it in you to be a leader.

They want to know that you’re capable of taking things into your own hands and making a difference in the world around you.

Remember to be authentic, fill your essay with specific details, and show UT a little bit more about who you are. They want to see a leader, but they also want to see you.

Short Answer #3: Please share how you believe your experiences, perspectives, and/or talents have shaped your ability to contribute to and enrich the learning environment at UT Austin, both in and out of the classroom.

This is a typical “Diversity” essay; it shows that UT wants to know about the unique pieces of you that will both benefit their campus and add to the diversity of their next freshman class.

Take it as an opportunity to show UT why and how you stand out.

When you begin brainstorming how you’ll respond to this prompt, be sure to consider all of the areas listed:

• What unique experiences have shaped your learning venture so far? Have you attended specialty camps or had what you consider to be the best science teacher in existence?
• What about perspectives? What are some interesting ways you have of viewing certain subjects? Have you had first-hand experiences to shape these views?
• Don’t forget about talents; what are you good at? Don’t be afraid to brag! UT sincerely wants to know.

Once you’ve got your experiences, perspectives, and/or talents listed, consider how they’ll add to UT’s classrooms.

What do you have to offer to your future classmates and teachers?

What will make you stand out in class?

Take this essay as a chance to show UT what you’ve really got to offer in the classroom, even if it doesn’t show up in your GPA or test scores.

UT Supplemental: Optional Short Answer

As we’re living in unprecedented times, you’ve got what appears to be an unprecedented opportunity; an optional short answer essay that relates to COVID-19.

Your response to this prompt is, of course, optional, but we suggest every applicant takes the time to respond. Why? Because they more you write in your application, the more UT will get to know who you really are.

When writing this essay, consider anything and everything that has impacted your academic performance throughout high school. COVID-19 almost certainly has made a mark on your high school experience, but include other factors when necessary:

• Maybe you were ill throughout most of your Freshman year, causing you to miss a significant amount of school
• You may have moved schools with every starting year, causing you to have trouble settling into each new schedule and routine.
• You could have had a family emergency or tragedy that affected your academic performance at a specific time.

This is a unique opportunity, because it gives you the chance to explain something that may make your application look less than ideal.

Give your reason, and then go beyond the prompt.

Show UT how you grew through that challenge and what it taught you.

Show the admissions team how strong you are, and how you’re capable and ready to leave your mark at the University of Texas.

Conclusion: How to Write the University of Texas Supplemental Essays

As you write your UT essays, remember that the goal is to give admissions officers a glimpse into your background, personality, and goals.

Be enthusiastic, open, and honest. Instead of trying to impress, simply try to convey who you are. Genuine answers will be more interesting and memorable than forced answers.

Start working well in advance, giving yourself plenty of time to proofread and edit , and be sure to use the tips and inspiration we’ve provided here.

Strong essays will definitely increase your chances of joining the Longhorns in the fall. Good luck!

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Test Prep | Tutoring | College Admissions

• Ryan Murphy
• Jul 10, 2018

Your Guide to Apply Texas Essays

Many universities in Texas use the Apply Texas application, making it easier for students to apply to multiple schools without having to repeatedly submit similar applications. As part of Apply Texas, colleges either require that you submit at least one essay or highly recommend that you send an optional essay that responds to one of the three main prompts.

The Apply Texas essay topics change periodically, but the most recent versions have been the same for the past few application cycles, and this trend seems like it will continue for the next few. (I’ll get to what exactly those topics are a little bit later.) Still, schools have different requirements, so here is a list of the major colleges in Texas and what they require or recommend:

UT-Austin - Topic A required

Texas A&M - Topic A required

Texas Tech - all optional, but recommended that you submit at least one

UT-Dallas - all optional, but recommended that you submit at least one

Texas State - all optional, but highly recommended that you submit at least one

UNT - all optional, but suggested that you submit Topic B (if anything)

What is the General Approach to Writing Apply Texas Essays?

While each of the topics have unique challenges and opportunities, there are still some general guidelines you should follow when writing any of the Apply Texas essays. Here is a list of considerations for all essays:

Length: Aim for 650-750 words (unless your college says something else).

Content: Connect moments in your life into a story that addresses the topic; include a title.

Tone: Have a positive attitude and outlook, even if you describe failures and challenges.

Structure: Include at least 7-8 paragraphs (e.g., Hook, Intro, Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution, Conclusion)

Scope: Write about one event or series of events with depth instead of listing out “your life story.”

Overall, your essays should be a blend of storytelling and traditional essay elements (thesis statements and intro and conclusion paragraphs). Also, since the purpose of the essays is to express yourself on a more personal level, you should feel free to be more informal and authentic with your writing.

How Do You Write the Apply Texas Topic A Essay?

Apply Texas Topic A: What was the environment in which you were raised? Describe your family, home, neighborhood, or community, and explain how it has shaped you as a person.

Step 1: Think how you define yourself as a person -- or how you want admissions officers to see you.

There are a lot of ways you can define yourself. Are you a problem solver? Are you a leader? Do you like discovering strengths in people? Are you a coding diehard? Does music run through your veins? The options are endless, but you should try to define yourself precisely and not as thousands of other teenagers will.

Example: You come from a city that blends cutting edge technology with appreciation for the environment. This blend has shaped your worldview, allowing you to see the beauty of integrating tech and nature.

Step 2: Determine which environment was most important for shaping you into this person.

A family, home, neighborhood, or community might be …

A biological or extended family, or a family that is a group of friends or members of a club

A literal home, or a home that is metaphorical, such as a place where you feel like you are yourself

A neighborhood where you live, including the people who live or work near you

A community that's a city, or a community that's a group of people who share similar ideas and experiences (physical or online)

Step 3: Develop a narrative to show how the environment shaped you into this person.

Here is an example outline for a hypothetical essay about how a hometown influenced a prospective business major:

Exposition: I grew up in a town that did X.

Rising Action: As I grew up, I decided to start my own Y, based on city influences.

Climax: As part of the company, I was excited that we were finally able to do Z.

Falling Action: We have extended operations into X.

Resolution: By being inspired by my hometown, I now am working on Y.

Step 4: Write the essay.

If you read your essay and think it's boring, then the admissions officers will think the same thing (but multiply that boredom by 1,000).

How Do You Write the Apply Texas Topic B Essay?

Apply Texas Topic B: Some students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. If you are one of these students, then tell us about yourself.

Step 1: Think of an essential part of yourself that you haven’t described already on your application.

You don’t need to be the stuffy academic on every part of your college application. Topic B is a great time to let loose and reveal the “cool” aspects of who you are.

Step 2: Choose an identity, an interest, or a talent that reveals this essential part of yourself.

An identity, an interest, or a talent might be …

A racial, ethnic, or gender identity

An interest in school-related topics (e.g., medicine, research, business, or programming) or in extracurricular topics (e.g., online videos, figurines and memorabilia, or gourmet cuisine)

A talent for something academic (e.g., leading people, helping others, or discovering things) or for something recreational (e.g., juggling, making clothing, or gardening)

Warning: You should avoid essays about race and ethnicity. Tens of thousands of them are written every application cycle and often do little to make you stand out from your peers.

Surely you have an interest or talent that goes beyond the normal high schooler profile, right? You like singing in the rain? You have an interest in ancient Rome? You collect butterflies?

Example: You are really good at making videos and documenting important events in people’s lives. You have an entire method for shooting and editing videos to make people feel like they belong to a group.

Step 3: Develop a narrative to show how this identity, interest, or talent is an essential part of yourself.

Exposition: My interest in X all began with ...

Rising Action: At first it was hard to do Y ...

Climax: But then I mastered Y, and I was able to ...

Falling Action: I learned how to do Z because of my struggles.

Resolution: Now X is how I … and also ...

This essay should make you think something like, “Wow! I had no idea a pre-med student like yourself also had a talent for breakdancing!”

How Do You Write the Apply Texas Topic C Essay?

Apply Texas Topic C: You've got a ticket in your hand - Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?

Step 1: Determine what about your personality you want to add to your application that is not already included.

Topic C is usually meant for fun, especially if you still had some serious things to say in Topic B. At this point, you should definitely be okay with revealing the non-academic parts of your life.

Step 2: Think of what place you could go to that would reveal this side of your personality.

The ticket can go to …

An actual place, such as a country, city, or other physical location (e.g., Paris, China, the moon)

A time period, such as the future (e.g., when we are colonizing other planets) or the past (e.g., medieval times when knights are fighting each other)

An imaginary place, such as inside the body or a place from a novel or television show (e.g., going to your stomach to see how digestion works, going to Hogwarts from Harry Potter )

Warning: While the essay opens the door for creativity, you should NOT go “off the rails” and write a story or an essay that illustrates your abstract musings or philosophical insights. Stick to the essay format, even if you want to take your admissions officers to far off places.

Also, time travel is nice. Don’t be afraid of it.

Example: You go to the set of your favorite tv show from a foreign country, where you speak with the actors and go on adventures in that country.

Step 3: Develop a narrative that addresses where you will go, what you will do, and why all of this is important to you.

Exposition: My sister and I watched X show every since Y time that something happened.

Rising Action: I take my sister and off we go to the set, seeing actor A and actor B, and we do X.

Climax: Along the way, we learn about the country, but we still don’t feel welcome.

Falling Action: Actor A and Actor B teach us their language and we start to feel more at home.

Resolution: We go back to the set, seeing the difference between screen and real life.

So many students write that they go to their home countries to see family. Also, many students choose real locations, which are great, but there are so many missed opportunities for being creative and imaginative.

Final Thoughts

While it is important to show your passion for prospective majors and careers, don’t neglect parts of your personality that typically go unnoticed in college applications.

Remember: You should be the star of these essays. If you start writing too much about grandma or your friend Billy, then you need to revise.

Keep it simple. Keep it fun. There are plenty of other serious parts of your applications.

Do you need help drafting your Apply Texas essays? Consider signing up for one of our college admissions essay services . We can help you brainstorm, outline, rough draft, revise, and/or edit your essays. Get a head start on your applications before senior year becomes too overwhelming!

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• How to Write the Apply Texas Essay [2022-2023]

About ApplyTexas Platform

Apply texas application process and requirements, prompts and essays, tips for writing essay a prompt with topic ideas, 1. choose a specific aspect of your surroundings, 2. talk about how your surroundings made you special, 3. make it interesting, tips for writing essay b prompt with topic ideas, 1. identify your core message, 2. make your core message a part of a bigger picture, 3. don’t be afraid to describe situations, 4. be mindful of your tone, tips for writing essay c prompt with topic ideas, 1. pick your destination, 2. don’t overdo it, 3. include all other elements.

If you’re a student looking for a great opportunity to pursue a rewarding undergraduate education in the state of Texas, it could be very helpful to know that there are over 150 four-year universities at your disposal. 

The process of applying for these universities includes using the ApplyTexas application platform. Prospective students can use the Apply Texas platform to accomplish the following tasks:

• Apply for admission to any of the 150 public university institutions in the state of Texas, including private colleges and participating communities.
• Apply for graduate, international and undergraduate admission.
• Take a submitted application to another university.
• Submit your ApplyTexas essays online (get college essay help).
• Find all necessary specific and general information regarding universities.

The 2022-2023 application season is about to knock on your door, and you’ll have to do everything in your power to pass the admissions committee. 

The Apply Texas Platform is a direct result of a collaboration between a wide range of private and public universities from around the state, and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board . 

This platform ensures that both Texans and non-Texans get an integrated means of applying to various post-secondary educational institutions. Prospective students can take their compelling application and use it to apply to multiple universities around the state. 

Instead of submitting applications for each school, students can use only one application that’s valid in all the 150 public university institutions in the state of Texas. The platform allows students to apply for admission to all private colleges and participating communities as well. 

Students can use this platform to find all necessary information about the platform, the process of application and requirements, and college essay topics according to their preferences, answer prompts, and more. 

It’s a great, actionable and very informative platform that helps students make their way to the school of their choosing. More importantly, students can use their ApplyTexas application to submit it to any other institution on the Apply Texas list of institutions.

The Apply Texas application uses a standardized form that allows students to use one application for several universities at once. Before you start your application process, make sure you verified that the school you want to get into is featured on the platform.

ApplyTexas is accepted in all public universities in the state of Texas. This platform offers a comprehensive range of tools students can use to determine whether a university of their liking is featured in the platform.  

Aside from ApplyTexas, students also use the Common Application colleges . It’s essential to determine which type of application suits your college list the most. ApplyTexas is just like an ordinary college application. There are some requirements, components, and materials you’ll need to consider before getting started. 

Here’s a list of what you’ll need to get started:

• One copy of your high school transcript
• Your standardized test results
• Evidence of any extracurricular activities
• Contact information for your guidance counselor and guardians
• Evidence of your parents’ employment
• A personal statement
• Letter of recommendation

Just like any other application system, Apply Texas application is divided into sections that deal with your interests, background, and personal information. These sections are:

• Biographical information 
• Educational background
• Educational information
• Test scores
• Residency information
• Extracurricular and volunteer activities
• Employment information
• School-specific questions

The system is divided into these sections to help admissions officers learn more about the prospective students, their habits, behavior, interests, aspirations, extracurricular activities, working and volunteering experiences, and more.

Since your application holds your personal information, they can use it to contact you in case they need clarification regarding questions, your information, etc. These sections help the officers get a clear picture of who their prospective students are, by understanding their interests and backgrounds.

When it comes to your biographical and educational information, it includes your demographics, school, and contact details. Admissions officers use this information to determine how you compare to other candidates, what resources your school provided you with, your background, etc.

Aside from these requirements, there are also custom questions to think about. These are included in most Texas universities are the Apply Texas version of supplemental essays. The most common topic of these custom questions is to find out why you’ve chosen a certain school or major or what you think your contribution should be to campus, etc.

Spring applications are mostly asked to write about their background and the environment in which they grew up in their essays. UT at Austin requires applicants to give answers to three 250-word questions that cover their future leadership, academics, and career. 

To make sure you’re properly prepared for your application and Apply Texas essay , see that you include all extra requirements before you submit.

If you’re comparing high school vs colleges , you’ll find out that college essays are almost the same, only a bit more serious. When it comes to Apply Texas essay requirements, these vary. The required prompts vary from school to school, but the most common essay prompt is Essay A. 

For example, UT Austin supplemental essays require Essay A with three smaller custom questions, while Texas A&M requires Essay A and B. All universities require an essay no longer than 1200-1500 words. If we take the fact that admissions officers have a lot of applicants to deal with, it would be wise to keep your word count to less than 1000. 

Now, there are three different ApplyTexas essay prompts for freshman and international freshman applications:

• Essay A: Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?
• Essay B: Most students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. Tell us about yourself.
• Essay C: You’ve got a ticket in your hand – Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?

Let’s take a closer look at each of the three.

This prompt is almost like your personal statement, only different. Students who are using the Coalition App or the Common App usually write Essay A. It includes the most important things that admissions officers should know about you. 

The trick with Essay A is to make it unique and personal to make your essay impactful and memorable. That means that centering your essay around your strongest test performance isn’t going to be enough to make you stand out. 

The narrative you choose to go with should be focused on you and your personality. You’re applying to college, hoping to get a good education that will help you build your career. You can’t expect to reflect on such a major event in your life by writing about scoring great on a math test. 

The story you choose to go with should be deeply connected to you. In most cases, adversity comes in handy. With that in mind, our recommendation would be to write about certain challenges and obstacles you had to overcome, such as a natural disaster, loss of a family member, an illness, etc. 

On the other hand, you can use this prompt to write about your expectations and opportunities. It’s even better if you had a chance to engage in some activities that other students haven’t. It’s essential to pick a topic that separates you from the rest.

Essay B gives you full control over your essay. You have complete freedom to write about anything that comes to your mind. Essay B isn’t about all of the activities you’ve crossed your path with, so you’ll have to stick with the most essential and meaningful one.

Pick the one that really defines you as a person and then elaborate on it. Talk about it, why it matters to you, how it helped you and defined you as a person, what you’ve learned from it, and how it helped develop a specific interest.

It’s even better if the activity is connected to the theme of your application. It helps to highlight your commitment to what you’ve actively pursued and felt so passionate about. The most important part of Essay B is talking about you and your identity. 

This part of your personality refers to anything related to your personality like an unusual hobby that defines your personality, your socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, languages you speak, culture, ethnic background, and so on. 

Pretty much, anything that you think is essential and played a big role in defining who you are as a person, your way of thinking and acting could be the topic of your essay. 

It’s not just enough to talk about your identity — you have to go further beyond it and expand on the concept. Talk about why you think this matters to you and how it helped shape you, your life, and your perspective.

The third prompt is about using your imagination without limits or boundaries. In essence, writing an essay should be fun. You’re not here to defend your dissertation in medicine — you’re here to tell the admissions officers who you are, what you love, how you feel, and where you would like to be in the next few years. Essay C is exactly that — your view of the future.

You can talk about where you would like to go with your life and then expand on that concept by thinking critically about the reasons that compelled you to go that way. If you can relate it back to your application, that would be even better.

By doing so, you have far better chances of standing out in the entire college admissions process. The best thing about the Essay C prompt is that you can choose a fictional place, as there are no rules stating it has to be a real place.

Essay C is essentially how admissions officers ascertain your character and capability. By letting your imagination run wild, you’re showing them how your mind works but, more importantly, what your true values are. 

This question is also an excellent way to show them what characteristics of a community you really hold dear. There is no one size fits all when it comes to writing a college essay that stands out. You’ll just have to think it through and try to connect all the dots into a bigger picture. 

It’s vital that you give answers to the following questions: 

• What made you choose that particular location? 
• How are you connected to that place?
• What role does that place play in your life?

It’s important that you describe some meaningful situations that helped define you as a person. Oh, and don’t forget to edit before you submit as you can’t afford to submit an essay with grammar mistakes, etc.

Let’s elaborate a bit on what you can do with your Essay A prompt. The main goal of this prompt is to allow admissions officers to see how the external environment has shaped you as a high school student. You can start by describing your environment. 

Identify and describe specific events and experiences that shaped your personality while in high school. Only describe the experiences that are really important to you. It’s essential that you focus on how these experiences shaped you through your high school career. 

Just describing the environment isn't enough as you have to show how that environment shaped you into the person you are today. Your audience is hoping to learn two main things about you:

• That you can be thoughtful and mature about your surroundings
• What makes you different from the rest in your environment

Here are some key strategies you can use to make sure you answer the prompt correctly.

Take ideas such as your community, neighborhood, home, or family and work on them in several different directions. Expand on each concept by including the most significant things and events that connected you with the surroundings. 

Reflect upon how this environment helped turn you into who you are today. More importantly, how it helped you stand out. You can talk about how your environment positively fostered certain traits or qualities in you or mention some obstacles you had to overcome. 

It’s vital that you make a connection between your special traits and the environment to send a clear message to your readers. Think of specific events, anecdotes, or stories that could be related to your interaction with your surroundings and explain what they say about you.

Remember when we said that writing an essay should be fun? You can make your essay more interesting by including some action and characters. Just like a good movie, your essay needs a happy ending or, at least, a poignant one. 

Here are some good features to consider for your essay:

• Setting — try to depict the main characters and their connection to the environment or start by describing the actual physical environment.
• Stakes — adding high stakes to the story gives your essay a dynamic range, making things more interesting. So, explain what you gained or lost in your anecdote.
• Conflict resolution — every story has an external and internal conflict that needs resolution. External conflict includes someone like a friend, a family member, a neighbor, etc. Inner conflict is essentially your response to a particular experience or event. Both conflicts need some level of resolution to express how the changes impacted you. 

Here are some good Essay A ideas:

• Describe a situation where you made the initiative to organize people in your surroundings to contribute to a common local cause.
• Reflect upon a close relationship with someone very close to you.
• Talk about a particular place in your environment and why it matters so much to you.
• Describe how it feels being a minority where you come from.
• The things you had to do to handle culture shock from having to move.

Prompt B is all about telling others about yourself. Now, this is pretty vague, but we can dissect it into two specific sections:

• The things that define you — every person has certain traits that define them, whether it’s a talent, an interest, or an identity.
• How these things make who you are — having traits alone isn’t enough, you’ll have to elaborate on how these traits make you who you are, what they say about you as a person.

Essay B tells your readers two things about you:

• How you see yourself — colleges are looking for students who are aware of themselves and can communicate messages about themselves in a cohesive, confident, and clear way. Describe your values and core traits that helped you go through changes and develop a sense of self.
• What your passion is — prompt B speaks about your ability to communicate genuine passion. You’ll face a lot of challenges in college, and you’ll need a driving force to overcome them all. Speaking about what you’re passionate about tells your readers that you can be engaged in the world around you.

It’s important not to lose yourself in describing a complete image of your personality. Keep in mind that you have to stay on the right course in describing your defining trait. 

So, be both comprehensive and focused at the same time. Here are a couple of ways you can frame your identity and put your passion in the best perspective.

To be able to precisely, comprehensively, and accurately describe the essence of who you are, you first need to identify your defining trait. It has to be something that clearly represents who you are or the core aspect of your personality.

This is where we’ll mention anecdotes and stories once again. The best way to identify your core message isn’t by just saying what it is. If you can tell a story about how you’ve come to recognize it, now that’s a completely different thing. Be positive and realistic as this helps make your essay sound serious and mature.

So, you’ve identified your core message. The next phase should be using it to create a complete image of your personality. Think about what your core trait says about you. 

• Are you adventurous? 
• Are you passionate? 
• Do you like exposing yourself to risk? 
• Do you have a taste for exploration? 
• Are you a team player ? 

Go with two or three traits and start painting your final masterpiece about who you are in your essence.

Just telling about some event or experience that demonstrates your key trait isn’t nearly as effective as showing or describing how certain situations led you to develop and recognize those traits.

You’re here to talk about the special qualities that make you unique and valuable to your college and community. Therefore, avoid seeming narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, staid, and glib.

You don’t want to sound self-centered and whiney. Instead, describe yourself as a person people can rely on, as someone who can take charge of a touchy or difficult situation.

Here are some good Essay B ideas to contemplate on:

• If you’re an expert on some topic or really good at something, try to explain how that impacts your identity.
• Describe what a certain extracurricular activity you got involved in means to you and what you’ve learned from it.
• If there’s anything you did thorough research on, speak about how you’ve come to discover that interest and the things you’ve learned from it.
• If you have a personality trait, explain how it impacted you, your life and the people around you.
• Describe how your cultural or religious background defined you.

Essay C is essentially about you giving your imagined possibilities to your readers. Since there’s a pretty vast array of possibilities to reflect on here, we recommend taking one of the following two approaches:

• Take your long-term goals and expand on them — describe what long-term goals you’d like to accomplish in your life and career to show what your interests are.
• Make your narrative imaginative — the C topic doesn’t put any limits on you. It gives you complete freedom to talk about anything, anywhere. It’s important to determine the place and the things you’ll do there. This helps express yourself as a thoughtful person, capable of thinking ahead of things and situations.

Essay C helps admissions officers understand a specific path you’re set on. This prompt allows you to demonstrate your maturity and knowledge. More importantly, it tells about your capability to include all possibilities and portray a futuristic picture of your life and career in a compelling way. It is crucial to find out all the essay requirements the university you are going to enter has. That's why we prepared different blogs such as Virginia Tech GPA requirements , Carnegie Mellon essay prompts , Johns Hopkins essay that worked , etc, to help our users prepare for this writing task.

Here are some tips to help you express compelling and thoughtful visions of your future.

Since this is practically your direct interpretation of what you should be doing in the future, you have to pick a destination that has a special meaning for you. It has to be genuinely compelling to you.

Students usually get lost in describing their vision because there is so much they would want to say but are limited by the word count. Therefore, stick with a simple aspiration rather than brag about your vision. 

Remember that you’re writing a college essay . It has to be real, convincing and serious yet imaginative. Talk about what kind of person you’d like to become.

Picking a destination is just one side of the coin. Don’t forget to include and consider other elements of your story. Take the key ideas that relate back to your goals, talents, and personality. 

Your admissions officers shouldn’t have to think about your point or who you are — your paper is there to explain that to them.

Here are some good Essay C ideas you can use to accomplish that:

• Describe how a particular extracurricular activity or class led you to pursue a particular academic career.
• Put yourself in a leadership role and describe what that experience taught you and how you’ve learned to take charge and solve problems.
• Start a discussion on how you had the chance to teach someone to do something and how that inspired you to teach in the future.
• If you want to make it more abstract and fictional, describe a place from your favorite movie or book you’d like to visit and what that says about you.
• Name a historical period you’d like to visit.

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A lot of selective colleges with a lot of applicants require supplemental essays. In many cases, these essays are just as important as the personal statement of the applicant. The University of Texas at Austin is one of those US colleges that requires a supplemental essay. Each year, new applicants ...

Essays & Short Answers

Summer/Fall 2025 Essay

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Please keep your essay between 500–650 words (typically two to three paragraphs).

Spring 2025 Essays

All freshman Spring 2025 applicants must submit a required essay:

• UT Austin Required Essay in the Common App, or
• Topic A in ApplyTexas

Please keep your essay between 500–700 words (typically two to three paragraphs).

Spring 2025 Essay Topic

Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?

Submitting Your Essay

You can submit your essays:

• In conjunction with your application.
• Using the Document Upload System in MyStatus.

*Students do not need to submit other Common App essays. We’ll only review what is required.

Short Answers

• Submit the required short answers to prompts in your admission application.
• Answers are limited to no more than 40 lines, or about 250–300 words per prompt, typically the length of one paragraph.

Summer/Fall 2025 Prompts

• Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?
• Think of all the activities — both in and outside of school — that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why? ( Guidance for student s: This can include an extracurricular activity, a club/organization, volunteer activity, work or a family responsibility.)

Optional Short Answer

Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance.

Spring 2025 Prompts

• Describe how your experiences, perspectives, talents, and/or your involvement in leadership activities (at your school, job, community or within your family) will help you to make an impact both in and out of the classroom while enrolled at UT.
• The core purpose of The University of Texas at Austin is, “To Transform Lives for the Benefit of Society.” Please share how you believe your experience at UT Austin will prepare you to “Change the World” after you graduate.

Submitting Your Short Answers

You can submit your short answers with either your Common App or Apply Texas application. Short answer responses must be completed in order to submit your application.

• Transfer applicants must submit one essay responding to Topic A.
• Applicants to the School of Architecture and Studio Art, Art Education and Art History are required to upload Topic D in addition to Topic A. 

Essay Topics

Topic a (required).

The statement of purpose will provide an opportunity to explain any extenuating circumstances that you feel could add value to your application. You may also want to explain unique aspects of your academic background or valued experiences you may have had that relate to your academic discipline. The statement of purpose is not meant to be a listing of accomplishments in high school/college or a record of your participation in school-related activities. Rather, this is your opportunity to address the admission committee directly and to let us know more about you as an individual, in a manner that your transcripts and the other application information cannot convey.

Topic D (School of Architecture majors only)

Personal interaction with objects, images and spaces can be so powerful as to change the way one thinks about particular issues or topics. For your intended area of study (architecture, art history, studio art, visual art studies/art education), describe an experience where instruction in that area or your personal interaction with an object, image or space effected this type of change in your thinking. What did you do to act upon your new thinking and what have you done to prepare yourself for further study in this area?

Submitting Your Essay(s)

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• Apply Texas College Essay Prompts for Class of 2023

January 17, 2022 By Jolyn Brand

The Apply Texas application is a common application form for most Texas public universities. It allows students to input their information for several different colleges at once. ApplyTexas college essay prompts for class of 2022 are:

• Essay A:   Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?
• Essay B:  Some students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. If you are one of these students, then tell us about yourself.
• Essay C:  You’ve got a ticket in your hand – Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?

Each school requires a different combination of these three college essays-some require all three, some just one or two, or others make certain ones recommended or optional. Some schools even use these essays for both admissions decisions AND scholarships so it’s important to put time and effort into each one!

UT Short Answer Question Requirements

As part of ApplyTexas, all freshman applicants will also respond to  short-answer questions .

Fall 2022 Prompts-Required Short Answers (250-300 words each):

1.     Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?

2.     Describe how your experiences, perspectives, talents, and/or your involvement in leadership activities (at your school, job, community, or within your family) will help you to make an impact both in and out of the classroom while enrolled at UT.

3.     The core purpose of The University of Texas at Austin is, “To Transform Lives for the Benefit of Society.” Please share how you believe your experience at UT-Austin will prepare you to “Change the World” after you graduate.

4.     Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance, including the possible effects of COVID-19.

Texas A&M University-  3 Short Answer Questions for all applicants

• Texas A&M University believes that diversity is an important part of academic excellence and that it is essential to living our core values (loyalty, integrity, excellence, leadership, respect, and selfless service). Describe the benefits of diversity and inclusion for you personally and for the Texas A&M campus community. (250-300 words)
• Tell us about the person who has most impacted your life and why.
• Describe a life event which you feel has prepared you to be successful in college.

Texas A&M University- Short answer question for Engineering majors (Priority deadline- October 15)

Engineering Essay : Describe your academic and career goals in the broad field of engineering (including computer science, industrial distribution, and engineering technology). What and/or who has influenced you either inside or outside the classroom that contributed to these goals?

The Apply Texas application has moved to https://goapplytexas.org/

Applying to colleges with the common app, be sure to check out the common app essay prompts here., share this:.

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Freshman Admission Essays

An essay is not required for admission, but it is highly recommended. Essay topics A, B, and C below are the same topics found on the   ApplyTexas application. If you choose to submit an admission essay, select one of these topics . Essays may be submitted through your ApplyTexas or CommonApp account or by using our document uploader.

Essay Topics - ApplyTexas

Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?

Most students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. Tell us about yourself.

You've got a ticket in your hand. Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?

Writing Essentials

To assist you with your essay, the Texas State English Department has provided the following guide to good essay writing.

Sentence and Paragraph Level

Does the essay reflect a relative mastery of usage, conventions, and vocabulary?

Do the sentences and ideas follow one another in a logical and coherent fashion?

Does the essay reflect a relative knowledge of the proper conventions of grammar? Do not simply use spell check or proofread your essay; read your essay out loud.

Do your sentences and words follow the proper conventions of punctuation and spelling?

Unified Theme or Subject

Narrow your topic to a single topic. Don't try to write a broad, general essay on how your life has changed. You can't do this in one page. 

Are your ideas specific and coherent? Choose language that reflects and relates specific ideas.

Creativity engages the reader. Don’t be afraid to take risks with your writing. Use creative examples.

Use specific examples to help make your points clear. It will make your essay solid and convincing. 

Submit Your Essay

Your essay may be submitted with your application or separately.

With Your Application

Document uploader.

How to Nail ApplyTexas' Essay Prompts

We walk you through how to write applytexas' essays a, b and c for 2020-2021..

Can you hack the ApplyTexas essay prompts? Well, in some ways not — telling a good life story is just never going to be easy.

But in other ways: yes! As college essay professionals, we at Prompt want to give you our three best pieces of advice:

• There is a secret word limit. While ApplyTexas doesn’t give you a max, we recommend writing between500 and 600 words. Put yourself in the admissions officers’ shoes. Would you want to read a long essay? No you wouldn’t. Be merciful, be brief, score points.
• There is a secret question behind the questions. Before you think about the prompts , think about you. Ultimately, whether you need to respond to one prompt, or whether you need to answer them all, schools want to know one thing:can you succeed in college and beyond? Brainstorm that first. Then turn to the prompts, and figure out how they can showcase what you want to say.
• Ask for help. Would you like someone who's looked over thousands of college essays to give you personalized guidance? If that sounds helpful to you, check out how we can help you at Prompt .

ApplyTexas Essay Prompts 2020-2021

• Essay A: Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?
• Essay B: Most students have an identity, an interest, or a talent that defines them in an essential way. Tell us about yourself.
• Essay C: You’ve got a ticket in your hand – Where will you go? What will you do? What will happen when you get there?

There’s no strict word limit, but we say keep it between 500 and 600 words.

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How to Write a Texas Format Essay

Last Updated: February 26, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Alicia Cook . Alicia Cook is a Professional Writer based in Newark, New Jersey. With over 12 years of experience, Alicia specializes in poetry and uses her platform to advocate for families affected by addiction and to fight for breaking the stigma against addiction and mental illness. She holds a BA in English and Journalism from Georgian Court University and an MBA from Saint Peter’s University. Alicia is a bestselling poet with Andrews McMeel Publishing and her work has been featured in numerous media outlets including the NY Post, CNN, USA Today, the HuffPost, the LA Times, American Songwriter Magazine, and Bustle. She was named by Teen Vogue as one of the 10 social media poets to know and her poetry mixtape, “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately” was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 172,284 times.

A great structure which can be used to help write an essay is the TEXAS format. This is actually necessary in the New Zealand system of qualifications. [1] X Research source It's also a great way to structure an essay. However, many people don't know how to use it. If you've missed a few lessons at school, this article can help you catch up.

Writing Your Own TEXAS Format Essay

• Mention your individual points. But try not to describe them. Just briefly mentioning them is fine.
• Banter, a brief sentence that is not quite on topic is a must. Don't make your introduction too long. Try to keep to five lines, seven at the most. An essay I wrote about Overcrowded Roads began thus:
• "Traffic Jams have become an issue in New Zealand. This is because of overcrowded roads, and is quite a problem in centers such as Auckland. Several government initiatives have been introduced to solve the problem, such as more roads, better traffic management and more public transport. However, I don't think these are the best solutions." Notice how the first line grabs the readers attention. I then go on to elaborate, revealing the actual issue I'm talking about. Then I mention the government initiatives (banter) and then set out my three main points in order of appearance. I tie off the paragraph by expressing my view. Your introduction needs to be a subliminal contents page. The reader has to know where you going before you go there. A common mistake people make in essay writing is saying, "In this essay I will talk about..." You will almost certainly be marked down for this. Be imaginative in replacing this phrase.

• T - stands for Topic. Here you state what you'll be talking about in the paragraph. It only needs to be one line, just enough to specify what you're talking about.
• E - stands for Explain. Here you will elaborate on your Topic, giving the reader more information about what it is. One line will do here, but two is more beneficial for your mark.
• X - stands for Example. This is where your paragraph comes to the crunch. You will have to use a real example. If you're to a Response to Literature, you'll need a real quote. If you're doing a formal writing essay you'll be able to get away with a looser interpretation of the word 'real'. You necessarily be judged on the content of your quote, but more on how you use it to back up your argument.
• A - stands for Analysis. Here you discuss how your example backs up your argument. Two lines is a good bet here, the more you show how much you understand your example the better. Feel free to start it off with, 'This shows how..." or "Here we see..." You shouldn't get marked down particularly, but you'll get marked up for a more original link.
• S - stands for Summary. This often means repeating your Topic statement with more affirmative grammar. Rearranging the words never hurt either. Put all of this together and you get a TEXAS paragraph. A paragraph trying to prove overcrowding on roads might go:
• "New Zealand roads are seriously overcrowded. Everyone owns a car, and everyone uses them.This has lead to crowded streets and more traffic jams. A government report released in 2006 showed a 20% increase in traffic jams over the last 10 years. This is the direct result of too many cars on the road, and the government is concerned about it. If the government is concerned so should we be. New Zealand roads are far too overcrowded." Notice how my example wasn't accurate; I got a merit for this paragraph despite this. The reason I got merit was because I did not use the more complicated paragraph form TEXAXAS. This is simply where you add in an extra example and analysis. TEXAXAS is not a crucial component of getting an Excellence, but it helps. The real reason I got a merit on this paragraph was because I used a generalization in the second sentence. Try to avoid these, the markers don't like them. I'd have been better off if I'd said " Most people own a car..." instead of everyone.

• "All in all, success is winning. The two words are the same. And anyway, why would you play a sport if you didn't intend to win? Who would rather lose than win? The derogatory term 'loser' is not showered on the successful. Success is winning, so unless you win, you lose." Despite my 'excellence' grade here, I could have done better. If I'd used examples from earlier in the essay to back up the points mentioned here, I'd have done far better. Note how I used questions. Examiners love this, finishing with a question leaves the reader thinking. Although it may not get you extra marks, it will give the examiner a better opinion of your essay. Also note how I tied off, using a slightly rhetorical statement. This brings the impact of the entire essay home in one hit, leaving the reader knowing what my argument was. Writing a TEXAS essay isn't difficult, anyone can do it. Writing one well is the trick.

Community Q&A

• Practice is always good. While revising for an exam, write mock essays under mock exam conditions. The more you succeed at this stage, the more you'll succeed at the actual exam. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1
• Relax while writing. Don't feel that just because it says Formal Writing at the top of the page that you have to be rigid in your language. Formal only means you shouldn't use acronyms, abbreviations or colloquialisms like 'Mate'. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• This guide is just that, a guide. It is not a teaching resource. Trust your teachers before you trust this guide! Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 2

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• ↑ https://nzhistory.govt.nz/te-akomanga/skills/communicating-information-paragraph-writing
• ↑ https://artdaily.com/news/146539/How-to-Write-a-TEXAS-Format-Essay#.Y7y5DHZBxD8
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXakluY3OB4
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6UDOQcMoPM

About This Article

One way to structure your essay is to use the TEXAS format, which stands for Topic, Explain, Example, Analysis, and Summary. For the introduction, write a 5 to 7 line paragraph that tells the reader what you’re going to talk about. The first line should state the problem you’re arguing about, like “Teenage drivers are irresponsible.” Then, spend the rest of the paragraph introducing the main points of your argument. After the introduction, you’ll move on to the body paragraphs, which is where you’ll do your arguing. Each paragraph should be organized around the TEXAS format, so start with your topic for the paragraph, explain your topic, give an example of the issue, analyze the example, and summarize the topic for that paragraph. End your essay with a summary that briefly reiterates your main points. You can also include some examples from earlier in the essay to back up the main points you explored or end with a question to leave the reader thinking about your topic. To learn how to create a rough essay plan, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Live Forever

By David Owen

A friend of mine knew a wealthy man who had decided to live forever. That made him hard to be around, my friend told me, in an e-mail, because he was “always dropping to the floor to do ab crunches or running out for bottles of water or falling asleep or outgassing Chinese herbs.” Immortality is attractive to rich people because simple arithmetic shows that if they live a normal lifespan they won’t have time to spend enough of their money. Peter Thiel , the billionaire venture capitalist, has expressed interest in receiving blood transfusions from young donors, an intervention that apparently adds weeks to the lives of laboratory mice. Jeff Bezos’s chiselled physique suggests a similar concern. The longevity evangelist Bryan Johnson, who sold a company he’d started to PayPal for eight hundred million dollars, wears a device that monitors the quality of his nighttime erections.

Life extension is a trade-off, though. You have to weigh the time you stand to gain against the time you lose while trying to gain it. When Jackie Onassis learned that she was dying, of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she is said to have regretted having done so many pushups. There’s also the discouraging fact that extra years, if any, come at the end of life, when even many rich people have begun to think about winding down. A wealthy bridge partner of mine, now deceased, told me as she approached ninety that she was already feeling a bit bored.

Einstein wrote that “the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” He presumably didn’t mean that, after death, he expected to travel back and forth through his life, as though riffling the pages of a book. Or maybe he did. At any rate, his statement hints at a better strategy, one that I myself have practiced for decades. The simplest, most foolproof way to extend life is to do so backward, by adding years in reverse.

During the summer of 1975, following my sophomore year in college, I got a job as a secretary at a book-publishing company in New York. My main task was typing letters from editors to authors. I used a typewriter, because there were no personal computers yet, and to create duplicates I used copy sets, which were sandwiches of carbon paper and thin regular paper. Carbon paper—for those too young to have any idea what I’m talking about—is paper or plastic film that is coated on one side with semi-gelatinous ink; when you press something against the un-inked side, the inked side leaves a mark. Carbon paper barely exists nowadays, except at some rental-car counters and in the etymology of the “cc” (which stands for “carbon copy”) in e-mails. At my publishing job, I placed a copy set behind a sheet of letterhead and rolled the two together into my machine. When I’d finished typing, I had an original plus one or two flimsy but legible facsimiles, for filing.

That same summer, inspired by my job, I began using carbon paper to make duplicates of my own letters. I was writing a lot of poetry at the time, and I believed that the copies would be useful to my biographers, whom I assumed I’d have someday. I gave up on poetry and literary immortality a year or two later, but I continued making carbons, and I saved letters that people wrote to me. Because of the pack-rat instincts of various members of my family, I also have the letters I wrote home from summer camp; the letters my father wrote home from the Second World War; the letters my wife, whose name is Ann Hodgman, wrote to my parents before and after we got married; the letters Ann’s mother wrote to her father when they were dating; and thousands of other letters, documents, e-mails, and texts. In recent years, I have digitized most of that stuff, so that I can search it.

When I was in high school, I tried several times to keep a diary—again, thinking of my biographers—but I was never able to stick with it for more than a week or two. This is a common problem. A dozen years ago, I found a diary that my daughter, Laura, had started when she was ten. It had a pink cover, more than a hundred ruled pages, and a lock on the front, which she hadn’t locked. The entry on the first page was about her piano lessons. It said:

EXTRA MINUTES PRACTICED Wednesday—1 min. Saturday—8 min.

All the other pages were blank.

Soon after I had begun making copies of my letters, I realized that if I saved them in chronological order I’d have the equivalent of a diary. I eventually bought an electric hole punch and filled many three-ring binders. In the late eighties, I started another kind of quasi-diary by making a written record on my computer of funny or interesting things my children had said or done. I got that idea when Laura was three and her brother, John, was in utero, but I was able to extend the entries back to the day of Laura’s birth by inserting material from letters I’d saved. I called it my “kid diary,” and I kept it going, with several lapses, for about ten years. The completed text contains almost ninety thousand words and is, by far, my favorite thing I’ve ever written. It’s the one thing I would save if I could save only one.

Of course, most of the real work on my kid diary was done not by me but by my kids. Laura, at four: “Dave, is cheese vegetables, or what is it?” (She began calling me Dave when she was three, and John eventually did the same.) John, at almost six: “God didn’t make people, Dave. Monkeys did.” Laura’s favorite feature in the children’s magazine Highlights was the advice column, and she used to make up readers’ questions and the editors’ replies. When she was four and a half, I overheard her, in the playroom, pretending to read aloud from a recent issue:

When I go to school I have a hole in my pants near my penis. My friends call me “penis-puh.” What should I do? Tom. I understand how you feel, Tom. Ignore your friends and find a nice quiet place where you can concentrate. Raise your hand if your friends have a problem with your penis.

Me, when John was two and a half:

My mother was reading John one of his dinosaur books and leaving out occasional paragraphs, so that she could get him to bed quicker, but he caught her. “You did not say ‘fleet-footed,’ ” he said.

Me again, when John was in kindergarten:

Yesterday, John sat at the kitchen table writing ransom notes, with spelling provided by Ann. One of his notes read “INQUISITIVE PERSON. 1,000,000 DOLLARS.” To write his notes, he put on snow boots, knee pads, and non-matching mittens.

Laura, when she was four:

Why am I not a grownup? I’ve been here for so many years.

And so on, for three hundred and fifty typed pages. I’m now keeping track, on a smaller scale, of funny or interesting things that my grandchildren have said or done. Alice, the eldest, when she was three: “Mom, I’m just going to relax and ring this bell.”

The final stages of Alzheimer’s disease have been described as living death: if you can’t remember your life, can you truly be said to be alive? I worry about that, of course, but I also worry about perfectly ordinary memory loss, which shortens a life more subtly, by allowing great swaths of it to leak away. My memory works pretty well, but writing things down has made it work better, and many of my favorite moments from the past forty years exist only because I kept a record. My kid diary has lengthened my life just as surely as rolling back my biological age would have, and it has done so without ab crunches, pushups, or erection monitoring. It has also lengthened the lives of Ann, Laura, and John, as well as reminding Ann and me that our children’s childhoods didn’t go by in a blur, as parents often feel when they look back. A friend told me recently, “If G.P.S. had existed from the time I got my driver’s license, I would have lived an entire second lifetime with the time I’d have saved not getting lost.” That’s the same idea, more or less.

Preserve too much, though, and you’d recreate the dilemma that Jorge Luis Borges explores in his story “Funes the Memorious,” from 1942. The title character is a young man who, after being thrown from a horse, discovers that he now remembers literally everything. “Two or three times he had reconstructed a whole day; he never hesitated, but each reconstruction had required a whole day,” the narrator explains. Funes “knew by heart the forms of the southern clouds at dawn on the 30th of April, 1882, and could compare them in his memory with the mottled streaks on a book in Spanish binding he had only seen once.” He’s so entranced by his new ability that he doesn’t realize it has impaired him. “To think is to forget differences, generalize, make abstractions,” the narrator reflects. “In the teeming world of Funes, there were only details, almost immediate in their presence.”

Funes is a fictional character, but there are real people with a similar ability. One of them is Jill Price, who can remember her life, from childhood on, in extraordinary detail. In her autobiography, “ The Woman Who Can’t Forget ,” she writes, “My memories are like scenes from home movies of every day of my life, constantly playing in my head, flashing forward and backward through the years relentlessly, taking me to any given moment, entirely of their own volition.” Price was the first person to receive a diagnosis of hyperthymestic syndrome, later renamed highly superior autobiographical memory, or HSAM . Both terms were coined by James McGaugh and his colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, where, starting in 2000, Price was studied extensively. Researchers would mention a news event, and without hesitating she would give them the date and the day of the week it occurred, or they would give her a date and she would give them an event. “And she was flawless,” McGaugh told me recently. He asked her if she knew what had happened to Bing Crosby . She said that he died on a golf course in Spain on Friday, October 14, 1977, when she was eleven. She remembered because his death had been mentioned on a news program she’d heard on the car radio that day, as her mother was driving her to soccer practice.

Price has been, at times, an obsessive journal-keeper, and some people have wondered whether she had simply memorized the entries. But she abandoned her journal on several occasions, once for years, then changed her mind and filled in the hundreds of missing days retrospectively, entirely out of her head. She makes the journals to tame the flood of her recollections, which she views as a torment. “If I didn’t write things down, I would get a swimming feeling in my head and would become emotionally overwhelmed,” she explains in her book.

McGaugh and his team eventually identified about a hundred people with HSAM . One is the actress and author Marilu Henner, who starred on the television show “Taxi” and was fired by Donald Trump on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Henner, unlike Price, revels in her ability. “It’s something that makes me feel really good, and I can’t imagine not having it,” she told me. “My siblings will say, ‘Come on, Mar, do a week from our childhood.’ ” Henner’s book “ Total Memory Makeover ,” which was published in 2012, is an effort by her to help the rest of us develop what she refers to as our “brain muscle”—a desirable goal, since she agrees with me that memory can be a powerful time-expander and longevity-increaser. “By really exploring your past, or remembering it in some way, you get a piece of your life back,” she said. “Your life becomes longer and richer, and kind of stretches in the middle.”

Henner describes a good autobiographical memory as “a line of defense against meaninglessness.” For those of us who, unlike her, can’t do it all in our heads, old letters, diaries, and photographs are indispensable aide-mémoire. On Presidents’ Day in 1988, Laura came home from nursery school and said, “Abraham Lincoln was shot!” I said, “I know, honey,” and she said, “But I’m keeping him alive in my thoughts. Emmy is keeping him alive in her thoughts, too.” She and Emmy, a classmate, were three years old at the time, so they probably wouldn’t remember today that they had taken on that chore if I hadn’t written it down.

My mother will turn ninety-five in June. She was my family’s principal historian until I took over the position. She made two photo albums for me as I was growing up. The first covered my birth through sixth grade, and the second covered junior high through college. She invented analog image-enhancing techniques that anticipated, by decades, digital tools that are now standard: using nail-scissors and glue to replace my brother’s frowning face with a smiling one in our Christmas card from 1966, when he was four; using an X-Acto knife to give me a haircut and to slice an uninteresting background from a family photo a decade later; eliminating red-eye with a black Flair pen. I studied both my photo albums so often over the years that they began to fall apart. I have now preserved them by extracting the original pages and placing them in individual sleeves in large archival portfolios.

For many people, documenting family life in this way is no more appealing than doing pushups or ab crunches. But I don’t think of it that way, and neither did my mother. “I have been pasting my scrapbooks,” she wrote to Ann and me in 1980. “I get more fascinated with them every day. I don’t know when I’ve had a project I’ve enjoyed so much.” For her, documenting the history of our family was an immersive hobby, like making quilts (my sister), photographing birds (my brother), or gardening and playing ice hockey (Ann). By the time I graduated from college, my mother was mainly researching genealogies, writing reminiscences, and organizing ancestral photographs, documents, and ephemera. I’ve relied on her work several times when researching things that I’ve written, most recently an essay about her own family.

Nowadays, producing and saving images is so easy that few people bother with paper prints, photo albums, or even cameras. They hold up their phone and click away, hoping to end up with something decent, which they then post on Facebook or Instagram or whatever. But a digital camera roll containing thousands of unsorted, unedited, contextless images is not an intelligible narrative of a life. Turning the pages of a physical book is a different experience from swiping a finger across a screen, and, if you don’t store your memories on paper, you allow your past to be held hostage by a potentially obsolete digital format or by Google’s unpredictable commitment to the cloud.

I’ve made dozens of physical photo albums, first by gluing paper prints and other mementos into the kinds of blank scrapbooks my mother used, and, then, since 2006, by uploading images to companies that produce paper photo books. (My favorite is Mixbook .) In addition to making annual family scrapbooks, I’ve documented vacations, visits by grandchildren, moments from the life of a friend who had just died, two years that Ann and her parents spent living in Germany when she was a baby and her father was a U.S. Army doctor, the history of the place we visit every summer on Martha’s Vineyard, the wedding of our guinea pig and one of our dogs, and trips that my father’s parents took between the nineteen-forties and the nineteen-sixties. The project that I’m the proudest of is a hybrid: two eleven-by-fourteen volumes containing the complete text of my kid diary, illustrated with several hundred corresponding snapshots.

At some point during COVID , I realized that I could create a truly comprehensive chronicle of my life if I consolidated all the best parts of my hoard of digitized text into a single document. The result is a million and a half words long, and it grows by roughly five hundred words a day. My goal is to come as close as I can to a day-by-day record—but not one like Jill Price’s, which consists mostly of brief mentions of things like the weather, the names of TV shows she watched, and what errands she ran. I’m trying to do what Elmore Leonard said he tried to do with his novels: leave out the parts that readers skip. I’m the only reader so far, and I may be the only reader ever, but I don’t want even my own interest to flag. I haven’t added photographs yet, but someday I will.

One of my richest sources of material in recent years has been a small e-mail group that my wife and I are part of. It began around 1996 (no one remembers exactly when), and currently includes ten participants. We’re all within ten years in age: the youngest were in their thirties when we started; the oldest are in their seventies now. All but one or two of us are self-employed. Most are writers. In the early months, I often worried that the others would lose interest and disappear, but the group has never been in serious danger of disbanding, and the lineup has barely changed. No member has died yet, although one spouse died last year. Two children and eight grandchildren have been born. Several children have married. All the parents who were alive when we started have now died, except for Ann’s mother and my mother. Despite our long history, the ten of us have never all been in the same room at the same time, except online. The first full in-person gathering, if there ever is one, will probably be a funeral.

Ten people who’ve spent almost three decades getting to know one another turns out to be the ideal configuration for a social network; it’s the scale at which Facebook and X would feel like life-enhancing communities of human beings, rather than ego-driven, soul-destroying, democracy-undermining time-sucks. Our e-mail exchanges are the kinds of conversations that people who have worked together for years sometimes have over lunch or cocktails—and our exchanges are mostly coherent, even grammatical. I used to brood that civilization had suffered a huge loss when people switched from sending paper letters to sending e-mails, but I now think the real loss occurred when people switched from sending e-mails to sending texts, which young people in particular tend to fire off in bursts of unpunctuated sentence fragments. E-mails are actually superior to paper letters in many ways, because they easily accommodate thoughtful, extended multi-user back-and-forth, in real time.

In the early years of our group, it somehow almost never occurred to me to save anything. Eventually, though, I began preserving notable e-mails, which I later combined into PDFs. I now copy funny or interesting passages as they arrive, and paste them into my burgeoning chronicle—including that line I quoted at the beginning of this essay about outgassing Chinese herbs, and the later one about G.P.S. and getting lost. Also this, from Ann:

I helped at the Epiphany pageant at another church yesterday. The girl who played Mary carried a doll. After the pageant, she said, “Jesus looks hella real.” . . . I recently gave blood at the school she goes to. Two students, a girl and a boy, were staffing the snack table. An older boy who had just donated came and sat down. The girl told him, “We saw your blood.”

And this, from me:

I woke up at 3:00 this morning and lay awake for a long time. I would have thought I never fell back asleep except that I know Henry [our poodle] can’t talk. He told me that he thought some ants that were crawling inside a rotten tree trunk looked as though they were carrying parachutes. I didn’t think it was odd that he was talking—just odd that he would describe ant eggs that way.

I’ve also saved many serious, poignant, and distressing discussions—of life, work, children, pets, politics, religion, marriage, divorce, cancer, everything. Many of those discussions unfolded over days, and almost all of them are too personal to share with strangers. My solipsistic record has thus evolved into more than the story of my own life, and is now also a steadily growing group autobiography. Every so often, I’ll quote something back to the others and, even if it’s just a couple of years old, it usually turns out that everyone has forgotten it.

Someday, I’ll turn my archives over to my children and grandchildren. I hope they’ll be interested in at least some of it, because it’s important for young people to be reminded that old people had pre-decrepit existences. But I would continue collecting, organizing, and preserving even if I knew that no one but me would ever look. Thinking about my life and the history of my family is interesting to me—just as it was for my mother—and I agree with Marilu Henner, who writes, “We all owe it to ourselves as living beings to take full advantage of our own experiences.” My preservation projects have given me a nearly Einsteinian view of time and mortality. I picture myself in a nursing home—not soon, I hope!—surrounded by photo books and letters and e-mail excerpts and portable hard drives, busily adding images to text, reading and rereading everything, creating compilations of compilations, contentedly living forever, backward and forward, until the end. ♦

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