You need to pick monologues that are from published plays.
If you Google something like “college audition monologues men/women/non-binary,” you are going to get a ton of unpublished work recommended to you. Avoid these at all costs. Just because it’s online doesn't mean it’s published.
Virtually all schools explicitly state that you should pick published work from a play and that you are not to pick unpublished ones. These programs go out of their way to say the same thing twice: one in a positive directive and the other in a negative.
If you’ve seen something onstage that has the perfect, age-appropriate piece, all power to you. Same if you’ve read a ton of plays with characters your age. But if you are starting from scratch, monologue books of published plays will most likely get you your quickest solution.
In fact, it’s always a good idea to invest a few dollars in monologue books, Grab something like The Actor's Book of Contemporary Stage Monologues: More Than 150 Monologues from More Than 70 Playwrights. Just be careful: typing in “monologue books” on Amazon will give you a ton of books with published monologues, but not necessarily monologues from published plays. The play designation is just important as the published part.
A good rule of thumb is that if the show has had a Broadway, West End, Off-Broadway, or professional run somewhere, you’re golden.
(By the way, beyond unpublished work, schools will reject your audition if your pieces are from film, television, video games, etc. Just a heads up!)
TLDR: Your monologue has to be from a published play. Grab a few monologue books from your local library or online bookstore.
