When’s the ideal time to start your college essay? The more space you allow for the process, the better your writing will be. That can often mean starting earlier than you’d think.

Artificial intelligence is talked about in every aspect of our lives, especially with writing. Generative AI is offering to draft everything for us, and some schools and teachers are going back to handwritten assignments to ensure students are not using AI for their work. What does that mean for the college essay?

The hardest part of the essay process is picking a topic. For most students, it’s the first time they’ve had to be introspective about who they are and what they bring to the world.

A winning college essay is personal — it’s why they call it a personal statement. It’s meant to show how you think, what matters to you, and what you’d bring to a college community.

Coming up with a topic may be the hardest part of the college essay process, followed closely by writing it well. Most students spend their school careers learning academic writing, not creative narrative writing.