What's the best way to format a college essay?

Totally understandable to want your essay to look clean and professional—small formatting details can feel stressful when the rest of the process is already high stakes.

For the Common App personal statement, here’s what you need to know:

When you paste your essay into the Common App essay box, the system automatically applies its own default formatting. This means that font choice, font size, and line spacing are standardized for everyone. You don’t need to worry about picking Times New Roman or double-spacing—these controls are not available or required.

As you draft, it’s best to write in a standard, readable font like Arial or Times New Roman at size 12. For paragraph breaks, do not use indents because when you paste into the text box, any tab indents might disappear or cause formatting issues. Instead, use a single blank line to separate paragraphs. This will make your essay easy to read both before and after pasting it into the Common App.

Double-spacing isn’t necessary. The Common App will single-space your essay with a line between paragraphs, which is why putting that extra line between paragraphs in your draft is helpful. Before submitting, always use the ‘Preview’ feature to check how your essay looks—this lets you catch any weird spacing or formatting errors that might show up after pasting.

As an example, say you finish a paragraph about volunteering at an animal shelter. Instead of indenting, you’d just hit return twice so there’s a clear break before your next thought about how that experience influenced you.

If you use italics or bold for emphasis, most basic formatting is preserved, but things like bullet points and tabs usually aren’t, so avoid them. Stick to simple formatting—clear paragraphs, proper capitalization, and punctuation.

Finally, always save a copy of your final essay both in your word processor and as plain text (like a .txt file) just in case you need to re-paste it.

By keeping it simple, you’ll ensure your essay comes across as neat and easy to read for admissions officers, which is exactly what you want!