<p>Fear of public speaking and business plan competitions.</p>
<p>In at Stanford, Columbia (SEAS as a Davis Scholar), CMU (ECE+Tepper), NYU (Stern), WL at Cornell.</p>
<p>frank, i was wondering if you would pm me with your stats, e.c., etc. I am interested in going to Stanford and any help is greatly appreciated. Wouldn’t your fear of public speaking show the admission officers that you aren’t a very good leader? idk it just seems like that topic would lower your chances…but i guess not.</p>
<p>The Tufts admissions rep. for my state sent me an email saying how much he like my essays and could relate, etc. It depends on the school, but when they accept only 1/4 or 1/3 or even less of applicants, you can be sure they turn down a lot of people with really great stats and extracurriculars with bad essays, or simply not great essays. Don’t blow off the essays.</p>
<p>General one -> Just a normal day.</p>
<p>Specific –> Chilling with my friend (and how I got interested in a certain topic)</p>
<p>Look to the left.</p>
<p>Frank: I’m wondering the same thing as jman. please enlighten us, can you send me your stats too? :P</p>
<p>i talked about how my most influential person was the inventor of post it notes</p>
<p>i really don’t think the essays matter as much as people make it seem. i am an above average writer at most and wrote my essay in three hours. it got me into upenn, rice, nyu</p>
<p>my best advice is to write an essay that makes you look different from other applicants. it doesn’t have to be very emotional or superbly different, just down to earth and shows a different side of you not found anywhere else in your admissions application</p>
<p>I’m thinking of writing about cat food. But it depends, I still have nearly two years before I have to do that…</p>
<p>I wrote about Fidel Castro for one essay (Princeton, Cornell; accepted) and how the band room at my school is my table (UChicago; accepted).</p>
<p>Took me forever to decide on both essays, and I started drafts for every single other essay option for Chicago’s.</p>
<p>Both our kids, interestingly, wrote about childhood play, and both got into Ivies, if that matters. One wrote about how not having enough Legos required him to be more creative, and compared it to his acquisition of creative computer skills, because his school did not have money for software. The other wrote an impressionistic, descriptive piece about playing store and detective as a child. Both quite short and light, but written very much in their own styles. The latter child has significant health problems, and wrote a very, very brief account of a moment after diagnosis at age 4, in the supplementary essay, but she kept this entirely out of her application otherwise, because she does not like to be defined by it or “use” it.</p>
<p>I wrote about the trials and tribulations of growing up in my fun and dysfunctional family.</p>
<p>It was something personal to me, so it was incredibly easy to write about. The only challenge was capping it off at 500 words for the CommonApp. </p>
<p>And, while it was a heartfelt essay, there were small moments of hilariousness that I was pretty sure would charm admissions officers into letting me in. My test scores were mediocre (lower 50% for the top schools I applied too, which were Princeton and Duke).</p>
<p>It got me into Duke, Princeton, Emory, Rhodes (in Tenn.)
And I was waitlisted at WashU</p>
<p>I wrote about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Michelangelo and got into UCLA, Cal, CMC and Pomona</p>
<p>I wrote about how I can’t choose what i want to be because I want to be everything, and how all of my interests shape me.</p>
<p>got into WashU, Notre Dame, Swarthmore, Tulane (full tuition), and others.</p>
<p>my dad had been through a terrible accident…these guys had taken five shots at him…his chances of survival were dim…only after 5 gruelling days of uncertainty did the doctors reveal that he was out of danger…incidentally my results came out on the same day and i was awarded the highest aggregrade…a much coveted award in my school
hamman…since u got into harvard…the uni i wanna get into the most…would writing an essay on this incident be a good idea…???..pls reply</p>
<p>Did you guys send the same essay to all of your schools or wrote a different essay for each?</p>
<p>Also, ARE THE ESSAYS THE SAME EVERY YEAR?..I want to try to get started soon.</p>
<p>For the common app, they’re the same.</p>
<p>And yes, you submit the same essay to all the schools, if they ask the same question.</p>
<p>I already wrote an essay for the common app about how last summer at Carnegie Mellon changed me…but I feel like it’s way to bland and isn’t personal enough</p>
<p>I’m considering writing about how the strong relationships I’ve had with various people at different points in my life is directly related to the music I listened to at those points and the fact that I listen to a mix of that music and stuff I find on my own shows that I’m more independent and mature. Trust me, there’s something there.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>I can’t remember what my D wrote about but I do remember an admissions counselor at Wellesley telling a group of parents (including me) to “make it memorable…make me laugh or cry after I’ve read 100’s and its 1 AM”. That tidbit I passed onto her, and I heard from her HS college counselor that they were great…she got into very good schools. D #2 writes well in conversational style and had me just dying laughing over an essay this spring for a class. I suggested she turn it into her Common App essay…we’ll see. It really was a piece of herself.</p>
<p>I wrote my essay about my desk.</p>
<p>I want to do it on slip and slides, and try to tie in how I’ve matured throughout high school. I want to make it interesting, but try to illustrate my personality, such as my natural attraction to the art of the practical joke.</p>
<p>Hey, look, you can honestly write about any topic you want - from desks to illness to a tragic accident.</p>
<p>What adcoms look for is simply, how does your treatment of the topic illuminate some quality that you wish to share with the world (and that the college ought to accept you for). Do not use a situation and use it as emotional leverage. I love reading about how people deal with and overcome trials and tribulations, but only a minority of those tales avoid sounding cliche and predictable. If you can do it, do it. That’s why I avoided more controversial topics altogether. I know my limitations as a writer. And I’m certain my essays were not the least of what got me in (quoting whoever mentioned this in a prior post). But they couldn’t have hurt me. Yes. That’s a huge point. Don’t write in any way that might jeopardize the decision.</p>