<p>Interestingly, one of my kids has faced serious health challenges her entire life. However, she chose not to write about this at all. Kids with those types of challenges often don’t want to be defined by them, and also don’t feel comfortable “using” them either. At least, my daughter didn’t. </p>
<p>I think this type of question is really pretty awful, honestly. It invites those with challenges such as illness or poverty or family problems or poor schools to present themselves as victims, a position those who have truly suffered tend to reject. Leaving those who have so far endured fewer challenges to answer a question that is, essentially, silly.</p>
<p>^^^Beautifully put compmom! I agree. I always struggle when I see these questions because I consider them invasive and “none of your business”. I thought it was just the way I was raised, but you have expressed it much better.</p>
<p>Small adversities can be good if written well. My son wrote his on being an introvert, and related it to his experiance sitting with strangers on a train trip to Boston, and how he got up the courage to introduce himself to his seatmate on the way back. When he was interviewed for a special program for college, the interviewers commented on it and seemed to really like it.</p>
<p>This is odd - I posted a reply yesterday and it’s disappeared. DS sent us a new essay early yesterday morning that was on the challenge of responding to this prompt when he doesn’t feel like he’s been truly challenged yet. It was better than the first essay. He talked about AP Euro and how he bombed the first test so he adjusted his study habits and did well in the class. I suggested he add a couple of lines about shooting in his first national competition (he did horribly) but after another year of experience and practice, he did better the 2nd year and earned a silver medal the third. He just doesn’t see any of those as challenges but at least they are things he worked on to get past and succeed. He did fess up to being frustrated with the question because he didn’t have anything to use as an answer because he doesn’t feel like he’s been challenged. I think that was a large part of the problem with his first attempt - it was insincere and it came across. We haven’t been given access to a more recent version so I’m not sure what it looks like right now.</p>
<p>I think he might be over thinking it. Every kid should have had some challenges ( even if they never had to face “real” adversity).if you never challenge yourself how do you know what you are capable of? Has your son never been out of his comfort zone? If not, how come?</p>
<p>I think he needs to be honest with himself. Going to another school for half days was really, " no bid deal? " if that’s true, then he didn’t challenge himself, he took the easy road. He needs to dig deep and think about something that made him REALLY uncomfortable. Then talk about how he dealt with it. 250 words forces him to show his creativity and writing ability. Anyone can explain something given enough words, only the best can get it done in < 250.</p>
<p>“Son applying for biomed engineering at MIT…how many of his other competitive applicants are awesome creative non-fiction writers?”</p>
<p>Many of the successful ones, I’d wager. MIT places a lot of emphasis on creativity as opposed to just skill in computation. It’s one of the most freewheeling, colorful campuses out there.</p>
<p>Being creative does not have to evidence itself in creative writing; there are many other ways to be creative. Just because one is not adept in creative writing does not mean he/she is not creative. Yes, MIT looks for creative, curious students. They are not all successful creative writers - I graduated from MIT and I am the furthest thing from a creative writer. There are parts of the campus that are very freewheeling and colorful but there are parts that are just normal kids that happen to do well in science and math and love to learn. I gravitated towards the friendly, social, work hard, play hard living group and loved it (Go Baker!). But I digress from the topic at hand. We got through the boring, dry essay and he ended up with the “my challenge is this essay” essay. It’s not bad but I’m not sure it’s great. It’s definitely more memorable than the first attempt. He submitted the application last night, just before the deadline and we’ll see what happens around December 20th or so. Now, on to the next round. He sent me two essays this morning for a medical school application. The first essay talked about how much he wants to be an engineer… grrr. Three applications submitted, 7 to go - will we all survive this?</p>