What is the correct format for college application essays?

Great questions! The formatting of your college application essay can definitely be confusing, especially when you start copying things over to the Common App or other portals.

Here’s what you need to know: Most college application portals (including the Common App and Coalition App) are designed to strip away most formatting. When you paste your essay into their text boxes, you'll notice that special fonts, bold, italics, and underlining may disappear, and you won’t have much control over alignment, font size, or line spacing. This is totally normal and doesn't count against you—colleges expect it!

For font and size, you don’t need to worry about setting these. The portal will default to a simple, readable font and size. For spacing, don’t stress if it looks like single spacing—the admissions office is used to this. Regarding paragraphs, the best approach is to hit "Enter" twice and leave a blank line between paragraphs, rather than using indents. This makes your essay clearer and easier to read when formatting gets removed.

If italics or bold get removed, that’s fine! If you had foreign words or book titles in italics, just write them normally (e.g., Les Misérables)—admissions officers are used to seeing things plain.

One tip: Try pasting your final essay into the Common App a few days early to check the formatting. Read it over and make small adjustments if needed (like adding a line between paragraphs), and don’t worry if you can’t control everything. The main thing is that your essay is well-written and clear.

Example: A student I worked with recently worried because her paragraph breaks disappeared. We solved it by adding a double return (an empty line) between each paragraph, which made the essay readable again in the app portal.

Admissions officers care about your story and clarity—not minor formatting details! Just focus on clear paragraphs and making your essay easy to follow. You’ll be fine!