Distinctive

By Caroline Matas, Ph.D.

When I was a kid, there weren’t nearly as many screens making demands on my time and attention as today’s teenagers face. That didn’t stop me from gravitating toward the TV after school and watching hours’ worth of whatever the gods of cable television served up (the olden days before streaming–I wouldn’t wish them on anyone).

My mom used to warn me about becoming a screen-obsessed zombie with the reminder, “Make sure your input matches your output.” This roughly meant: try to balance the content you’re absorbing with time spent pouring out your own creativity and effort.

In 2025, input has never been easier to come by. Studies have found that Americans spend nearly half of our waking hours in front of a screen. From the allure of a perfectly algorithm-curated TikTok For You Page to TV streaming services that can serve up anything we might want to watch, it’s easy to watch the hours slip away in the left hand corner of our phones.

But what if I told you that focusing on creative output could mean not only a healthy break from screen time, but also an opportunity to prepare for applying to college? It might sound like a stretch, but I have found that one of the main qualities that separates great applications from good ones is a student’s ability to make creative connections and reflect thoughtfully on their life experiences. 

If your immediate reaction to this concept is, “But I’m just not a creative person!” I have great news for you: creativity isn’t something you’re simply born with or without, but a muscle you can strengthen and build. If your parents are starting to push you to prepare for college application season, here are a few fun ways you can flex those creativity muscles that will also serve you well as you start brainstorming application essay topics.

Journal

According to the New York Times, the benefits of journaling range from a stronger immune system to a higher IQ. While this might be reason enough to take up the habit, journaling can also help you prepare to write a better college essay. Journaling helps you access your “real,” non-school voice–in other words, the voice you’ll want to use in your personal statement for colleges. Recording your thoughts and experiences into a journal can also help you identify patterns that will come in handy when essay prompts ask you to reflect on the ideas, events, and people that have shaped you. 

Collage

Collage art has long been a staple of art therapy because of its versatility and accessibility. All you need is a blank canvas (a piece of paper, poster board, cardboard, or even a piece of furniture) and, well, junk to put on it. Round up some holiday catalogs (or maybe even college brochures!) destined for the recycling bin, your old sticker collection, or anything else that might be fun to cut up and remix, and glue them to your canvas however the mood strikes you. Not only is collaging a fun practice in letting go of perfectionism (it’s impossible to do collage “wrong,” because there are no rules!), but it also gets you in the habit of making connections and meaning out of seemingly unrelated sources. The latter skill is especially useful in college essay writing, where you can elevate a run-of-the-mill account of scoring the winning goal in soccer by connecting it to some other, more personal aspect of your life story.

Zentangle or Color/Paint by Number:

Those intimidated by a blank page (relatable!) might find that the easiest entry into creative output is through guided activities. If that’s true for you, you might benefit from trying out something like Zentangle (where you make a repeating pattern until you fill up a whole page) or color/paint/sticker by number. My advice? Try doing one of these guided art forms without any other form of audio input–i.e. no podcasts, YouTube videos, or music in the background. Give your brain some rare breathing room and see what comes up when your mind wanders. It could be that the perfect college essay topic is waiting to emerge from just below the surface. As the poet Mary Oliver once wrote, “Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions…. Privacy, then. A place apart — to pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.”

Try Something–Anything!–New:

As meta as it may sound, the very endeavor of trying to learn a new creative skill can itself be fodder for a college essay. Many of my students are surprised to find how many supplemental essay questions ask them about what they do outside of what’s already in their application. This means, when you’re not doing school or the extracurriculars listed in your activities section… who are you? Trying out a creative skill–from learning to crochet to perfecting a new dance move–can not only give you a reason to put down the phone, but can also be a source of a funny or heartfelt essay about trying and failing, trying and succeeding, or trying and retrying. And who knows–maybe you’ll find your newest passion along the way.

As you look ahead to the new year and start thinking about the applications you’ll be putting together in just a few short months, keep in mind that readying your brain for application season doesn’t have to be a slog. Embrace opportunities for creative output, and what emerges might surprise you.