<p>I just finished my junior year of high school so even though I'm not applying to colleges yet I'm already thinking about it like crazy! Anyways I was wondering if writing about a friend's suicide be too heavy for a admissions essay. It affected my life a lot back then (8th grade) and has changed my view on life forever. It seems like a good idea because it's personal and close to my heart but I don't know. Thoughts??</p>
<p>Wow … I can’t believe the same thing happened to you too …
I was wondering the same thing, because that event actually influenced me deeply and was the catalyst for a large part of what I do today.</p>
<p>At a Yale-Brown-MIT joint admissions chat I attended last year, they specifically made it a point to say that too many people write about very awful things–to a point that the admissions counselors were almost afraid to read the essays. (This was said halfway jokingly, of course.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure, however, if it was specifically the content that was the issue; it might very easily have been how the content was presented.</p>
<p>^yes I agree. there are lots of people who write about friends and family members dying. though it might be something that is really important to you, you have to remember that you must make yourself stand out. death affects everyone in a heavy way, thus everyone ends up writing a similar essay. i suggest that you either write about something else that is unique to you, or, if you do feel that you must include the experience somewhere in your application and believe the essay is the best place for it, then perhaps write about it indirectly. talk about a different experience in your life, even something that may seem mundane, maybe something specific in your life you’ve started to view differently because of your friend’s death. please don’t write about the suicide itself, or anything trite like the day you found out, or the immediate aftermath. i, myself, not even an admissions officer or anything like that, have read many essays like this and while many were well written, they never served their purpose as admissions essays.</p>
<p>I think you would have to navigate the topic very carefully. You should follow the universal principle- show, don’t tell- which means you will want to focus on concrete examples that show exactly how the tragic event impacted your subsequent choices.<br>
The essay could backfire if there is even a hint of insincerity, or if it appears that you are exploiting someone’s suicide for your personal gain by trying to get the admissions officer’s sympathy.</p>
<p>I think the most effective college essays are ones where you are able to make some interesting observations and share your unique insights about seemingly routine events. But obviously you should write what you most want to write about.</p>
<p>Remember that the essay should be about you. I think when you write about how another person’s death affected you, that creates an unpleasant tension in the piece. To the extent the essay is about the other person, it’s not about you, and thus isn’t a good admissions essay. To the extent it’s about you, then it seems to me that it diminishes the other person and makes them into just a vehicle for talking about yourself. I don’t think it’s a great topic. I also think something that happened in the 8th grade is probably not the ideal topic, either. Finally, make sure that you have an adult (preferably several adults) who is not in your family read your essay. If it turns them off, take that very seriously.</p>
<p>Note: this is also why, in my opinion, essays about the inspirational life stories of your grandparents or your parents don’t make for the best essays, either.</p>
<p>At 17 yrs old, I wrote about how I broke the trust of my best friend by blabbing about a closely kept secret and how I had to rebuild my friendship with him.</p>
<p>Looking back at it, I can see that my application readers learned something about me rather than some kid who experienced some events.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice! I think if I’m gonna focus more on writing about me in my essay.</p>