<p>“Bed bugs they seem to follow me everywhere” - Stay away from that one.</p>
<p>“On Writing the College Application Essay” by Henry Bauld gives a comprehensive overview of the college essay process, including a good list of hackneyed essay topics that rarely impress admissions officers unless they’re done perfectly. Do yourself a favor and buy it before you write.</p>
<p>Thanks BigGlasses, just bought it on amazon!</p>
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<p>Cliche treatment is not automatically related to the commonness of the topic. </p>
<p>Look at the sports section of the New York Times. Every day there is uncliched writing about common topics.</p>
<p>The converse is true as well. An essay on any topic could fall into a cliche chasm. I worked hard at X and my hard work paid off will be a cliche no matter what X happens to be.</p>
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<p>College essays do not have to be brilliant. What they do have to be is personal. So it is a good idea to stay away from topics about which you lack personal, experiential knowledge.</p>
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<p>Well this is a problem. *The topic is not going to save the irremediably cliched writer. * </p>
<p>The solution is to learn not to write cliches into everything! And have someone with an awareness of what cliches are read over your essays.</p>
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<p>I have that book. The material of which you speak (you are referring to Chapter 3?) is not a list of hackneyed topics. It is a list of hackneyed treatments of topics.</p>
<p>Take The Trip. </p>
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<p>Does this mean that writing about travel must be avoided? No. It means that sweeping banalities about travel must be avoided. It means that if you write about travel, attention must be paid to small and homely (but significant) details.</p>
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<p>There are no cliched topics.</p>
<p>There are only cliched ** treatments** of topics.</p>
<p>A bad topic is one that a writer feels no passion for.</p>
<p>@halcyonheather the problem here is not your topic, but your writing. If you have a tendency towards cliches just make sure you have several people who have a good knowledge of writing read your essay. I had two English teachers and our career resource center counselor read my essay. My topic (dealing with the need to be perfect in high school) could have been incredibily cliche, but having three people critique it helped me avoid that. A good essay requires work and feedback from other people. As long as you spend some time on it you should be able to eliminate the cliches in your essay.</p>
<p>Also, like most people in this thread, I believe there is not a specific lists of topics to avoid. Choose one that applies personally to you and write it so the essay reflects your experience, not an experience that every single person has had. For instance, don’t write that the one time you volunteered at a soup kitchen changed your life because it made you thankful for everything you have. That’s a very cliche approach to the topic.</p>
<p>The only other rule of thumb is to not make your admissions counselor extremely uncomfortable. This is a personal essay, but some personal topics (i.e. religion, home life, personal struggles) can be rather uncomfortable for the reader if you don’t do them tastefully.</p>