How bad is it if I write about a cliche essay topic? Is this like an automatic reject at top schools? I think my essay is really well-written. I wrote about tennis… but it wasn’t about a championship game or something. It was about how neglecting my serve and having to improve something I didn’t want to work on taught me about loving the times I struggle and embracing the obstacles I encounter in life…
From your description, it sounds good. It’s not cliche; cliche is something like writing about winning a championship, or a service trip to Kenya… and your essay is none of those. Really, as long as the topic isn’t something so obvious and so overused, it depends on more about how you portray your process of learning as a person or how you overcame certain obstacles in your life.
Cliche topic is not the problem; rather, a cliche content.
Many people write about their enlightenment from community service or about their sports etc. But what differentiates between those who got accepted and those who were denied? (for the sake of conversation, assume exact profile but different essay content).
I’ve read many essays about various sports - tennis, baseball, football etc. But I still remember the ones that struck me as impressionable.
If you can manage to write a fresh content from a cliche topic, that would be the ideal course for you.
I wrote about football, considered to be cliched but like you a different take. I wrote about how we were just awful freshman year because we weren’t a team. We used to yell at each other, our coach gave up on us and quit midbseas. A group of us decided to work to change that and by our junior year we ended up ranked highly in the state because of how we made a team. I didn’t apply to a ton of places but I’ve gotten into all of them.