<p>Would you aviod using cliches in your admissions essay at all costs? Is it a bad idea or do you consider it to be accetable. I have some ideas for writing mine and I would just like some opinions on this. I know my Creative Writing teacher highly discourages them in our writing but any thoughts would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Generally, you should avoid using cliches in your essays. Could you expand on what type of cliche you intend to use? Is your entire essay or essay's "theme" a cliche or did you use one cliche in a sentence?</p>
<p>Unless you're relying on them right and left, don't worry about it too much. They're not great...the definition of "clich</p>
<p>Well im considering incorporating the "when life gives you lemons make lemonade" phrase. It sounds kind of cheesy but I just had a train of thought and considered using it. I think I could incorporate it pretty well though, who knows im undecided.Just thinking out loud i guess.</p>
<p>If I were an adcom and that phrase expressed the point you were trying to make + fit well within the statement, I wouldn't think anything of it, good or bad. If I were in your position, I'd probably either write it in a way that highlighted its familiarity ("As they say..." and "...so to speak" are handy for that) or I'd add some kind of small twist, keeping the clich</p>
<p>^agreed. I wasn't sure if you were leaning toward more of a cliched topic. That's more of a problem. One cliched phrase won't matter.</p>
<p>I believe my prep school admission essay started with the line "Despite sounding cliche..", and that got me into a lot of schools! But that was for prep schools, I do not know how much a cheesy cliche would pass in the eyes of college admissions.</p>
<p>I think the biggest risk of using a cliche in your essay is that you are almost guaranteed not to be the only applicant using it in their essay. I steered clear of cliches because I could just picture an adcom picking up my essay AFTER reading one that had used the same cliche I did... But maybe I'm just paranoid like that.</p>
<p>make the cliche new. change up the wording and make it humorous/sarcastic/dark/etc, appropriate in the context. people love seeing old dogs doing new tricks.</p>