Type “college essay ideas” into Google and two of the suggestions, as of October 2026, end in “for boring life” and “for boring people.” Yale’s admissions office has a line on its essay page that speaks to that worry: “We have read wonderful essays on common topics and weak essays on highly unusual ones.” The admissions pages quoted below disagree about how much your choice of topic matters. None of them asks for a dramatic or unusual life.
Here is where four of them stand, each read on the college’s site in October 2026.
| Source | How much the topic matters | What it warns against |
|---|---|---|
| Yale Office of Undergraduate Admissions | "It doesn't matter which topics you choose" | No topic named |
| Rick Clark, Georgia Tech admission blog | "the topic doesn't really matter anyway" | Lists familiar topics he has already read, without ruling them out |
| Babson College admission pages | "Choosing the right topic is crucial" | "overused topics" and topics that are "sensational" |
| MIT Admissions, on its own short essays | Not addressed | Strategizing about what makes you "look best" |
What Admissions Pages Say About Ordinary Topics
Yale’s essay page gives the reason common topics can work: it calls your perspective “far more important than the specific topic itself.” The same page lists topics earlier applicants wrote about, including family situations, people who influenced them, school or community events they reacted strongly to, and intellectual interests.
Johns Hopkins shows what that looks like on the page. Its admissions committee nominates essays that worked, and the page says their writers “were able to share stories from their everyday lives.” The current set, from the Class of 2030, includes an essay about baking and one that Hopkins describes as starting from “an ordinary closet cleanout.”
Rick Clark reaches a similar view from the volume he has read. In a Georgia Tech admission blog post first published in October 2016, he wrote that he had been reading essays for over 15 years and put his count at “more than 10,000 essays.” His conclusion then: “there is no completely unique topic.”
Where the Admissions Pages Disagree, and Where They Meet
Babson’s admission pages take the opposite view. A guide on its undergraduate admission pages, dated February 18, 2026 and written by a Babson content marketing manager, says “Choosing the right topic is crucial.” Its final tips repeat that the topic “is just as important as how you write about it.” It also tells applicants to avoid “overused topics.”
Clark’s advice, in the same 2016 post, is the reverse: “your energy should not be spent on selecting the topic.” He came back to the idea in a September 2025 post, which asks, “What if there is no best topic?” Yale, as quoted at the top, has seen common topics done well. On whether to steer clear of a familiar topic, then, these pages disagree.
Babson, Yale and MIT do meet on a narrower point: an impressive or unusual subject does not carry an essay by itself. Babson’s guide says, “A strong topic isn’t about being impressive; it’s about being reflective.” Yale has read weak essays on highly unusual topics. MIT, writing about the short essays on its own application, says that applicants who spend their time strategizing about what makes them “look best” are “doing it wrong.”
For a student who thinks their life is too ordinary, that narrower point is the useful one. The test is what a topic lets you show, not how it sounds.
How to Find College Essay Ideas in Ordinary Material
The four steps below are our method. Each one rests on something a college’s admission pages or the Common App has published.
1. Start from a question you want to answer
For 2026-2027, the Common App offers seven essay prompts. Six name a kind of material: a background or identity, an obstacle, a belief you questioned, unexpected gratitude, a period of growth, or an idea that absorbs you. The seventh reads, “Share an essay on any topic of your choice.” Clark’s advice on the choice: “Once you figure out which question you want to answer, meaning you really have something to say or you’re somewhat excited to respond, start writing.”
2. List ordinary material before you judge it
Babson’s guide lists starting points such as these:
- “An experience at a part-time job, on a team, or as part of a club”
- “A moment when you changed your mind about something important” (and what it taught you)
- “An experience where you had to adapt quickly when a plan didn’t work”
- “A topic you explored deeply on your own, without being assigned”
Write each candidate down as one specific moment, with a place and a time, before you decide anything. Babson also suggests having family members or friends “interview” you to see what sparks inspiration.
3. Test each candidate by what it lets you show
Babson’s guide lists four questions it says admissions readers are asking:
- What did you learn?
- How did you change?
- How do you think and act in the real world?
- What makes you curious?
Drop any candidate that answers none of them, however impressive it sounds. Keep the ones where your answer is something only you could write.
4. Keep the final choice yours
Cornell spells out where help at this stage ends in its policy on receiving help. It lists working with your college counselor “to brainstorm essay topics” as acceptable. It puts “Having someone else choose your essay topics” on the unacceptable list. That rule is Cornell’s, but the line it draws, between suggestions and the decision, is a useful one wherever you apply.
Once the topic is settled, two decisions follow: how to open the essay, and how much of the word limit each part of it gets.
College Essay Topics to Avoid, and Who Says So
Babson’s guide tells applicants to avoid overused topics and topics “that lack reflection or are sensational.” It adds that essays “that focus only on achievements without introspection may be less effective.” It also says to avoid writing about subjects that “don’t reveal your personality or growth.”
Clark’s 2016 post names the familiar versions he had already read:
- “Sports analogy about life, failure, and triumph”
- “Mission trip to a third world country, including multiple transportation modes, animal crossings, and flat tires”
- “Family drama where you displayed tremendous patience, empathy, and wisdom beyond your years”
- A “difficult coach/teacher turned advocate”
- A student who “stuck out a horrible summer job that provided valuable lessons and renewed focus and direction”
- A “beloved grandparent who moved in, built close friendship, died, but taught a lot of valuable lessons in life and death”
He does not tell you to avoid them. He asks whether the essay will stand out among others like it: “If 5,000 other applicants chose the same essay prompt, and 100 of those choose the same topic, will your essay be noticed?” His next question is the test: “Does it provide specifics and descriptions of you or others, as well as setting and moment?”
Our advice if your best material sits on that list: keep it only if you can anchor it in one specific moment and say what changed in how you think. That answers Clark’s question about specifics and Babson’s questions about reflection. It does not settle their disagreement about familiar topics.
Should You Use an AI Topic Generator?
Two more of Google’s suggestions for “college essay ideas” end in “generator” and “ai.” Yale, the University of Virginia and Cornell each publish a rule on AI for applicants. All three allow it at the topic stage and bar it from writing the essay.
| College (read October 2026) | AI for topic ideas | AI and the essay itself |
|---|---|---|
| Yale | Seeking "topic suggestions at the start of the writing process" is not application fraud | Submitting "the substantive content or output" of an AI tool is application fraud |
| University of Virginia | AI may help you "brainstorm essay topics" | Do not "cut and paste any part of your essay" from an AI tool |
| Cornell | "brainstorming essay topics" is an ethical use | Using AI to "outline, draft, or write your essays" is unethical |
Yale gives its reason in one line of its AI policy: “AI tools are inevitably ignorant of the foundation of a successful application: the unique person applying.”
The University of Virginia makes a similar point about the finished essay in its policy on generative AI. An essay that relies more on AI than on your own thinking will, in its words, “lack your voice, your ideas, and your very personal reflection on how your experiences have shaped you.”
Cornell’s rule comes from its FAQ on generative AI. Its help policy, quoted above, also rules out letting someone else choose your topics. Our working line from those two pages: a generator can put options in front of you, and the choice among them stays yours.
The Common App covers the essay itself in its personal essay policy: “Your personal essay must be your own work.” Its next sentence names AI software. These are the rules of three colleges and the Common App, not a rule for every college.
Our advisors work on the same side of that line. A Detailed Application Review is part of ExceptionalGrad’s college application consulting: a comprehensive review that, in the page’s words, “ensures that all sections of the application including essays and experiences are fully prepared for submission.” We edit and advise, and we never write the essay.
Frequently Asked Questions
What college essay topics should you avoid?
Avoid choosing a topic because it sounds impressive; Babson’s admission guide and MIT both warn against that. Familiar topics divide these sources. Babson advises against overused ones, while Yale reports strong essays on common topics, and Georgia Tech’s Rick Clark says your voice, not the topic, is what sets an essay apart.
Can my college essay be about anything?
On the Common App, yes. Its seventh prompt for 2026-2027 invites an essay on any topic you choose. Yale’s admissions office says it doesn’t matter which topics you choose, “as long as they are meaningful to you.” Supplements are different: Yale’s supplemental essay, for example, asks you to pick one of three set prompts.
Can I use AI to brainstorm college essay ideas?
Yes at Yale, the University of Virginia and Cornell. Each names topic ideas or brainstorming as an acceptable use, and drafting or writing the essay as not. The Common App also requires your essay to be your own work. Those are three colleges’ rules as of October 2026; your colleges may publish their own.
What are good college essay ideas to write about?
Good ideas are ones that show how you think, which is how Babson’s admission guide describes a personal essay’s purpose. Its list of starting points includes a mentor who helped shape you, a time you had to be an unexpected leader, and a class, book, podcast or conversation that changed how you see the world.