College Essay Help.

College Essays
1

<p>I am only a 10th grader but I just wanted to brainstorm some ideas I wanted to write about.
I live in California in a very competitive school, there's one problem: My mom can't drive. She just flat out can't drive,she's sick and after being treated for about a year, she's not really getting any better. As a result, I have been a little bit restricted by my EC's, I can only do what's available within a certain couple mile radius of my home. (Only thing I have been able to do is tutor at my local elementary school).
Also 8th grade, my dad had to go to China to work, I went to China for a few years and attended their public school. I knew zero Chinese prior to that, and actually by the time I had left, I had ranked about top 20 of 600 students at that highly competitive public school. </p>

<p>I wanted to know if any of these ideas were original as I know a lot of college essays are about how people lived in poor conditions and they overcame it through perseverance and diligence and I don't know if experiences in the 8th, 9th grade matter that much.</p>

<p>Finally, I just wanted some tips on my EC's. It is a little bit off-topic, but they are extremely weak and due to my lack of transportation, (I have to pay 30$ for a cab to pick us up to go to the dentist). I know it's no excuse, but besides running for positions at my club/school ,is there anything online worth checking out? I could get an internship/ do some stuff that you guys suggest in China, but colleges generally view stuff from China as fraudulent, so I am kind of out of ideas.</p>

<p>Once again, thanks for all your help and if you have any ideas/suggestions please feel free to leave it below.</p>

2

<p>I was wondering if they were good, original life experiences to talk about.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

3

<p>I’d do the second one. The first one has the possibility of coming off as whiny or as an excuse. Colleges want to see worldly kids who aren’t too caught up in themselves. The first idea sounds too much like a “first world problem” (if all you talk about is your mom’s inability to drive. You say she’s getting treatment, but that doesn’t tell me if this is due to a serious illness or a phobia) or, if it isn’t and you want to talk about your mother’s road to recovery or struggle with this illness, you run the risk of spending too much of the essay talking about her, which admissions officers say is the second most common mistake they see in essays.</p>

4

<p>Remember that you have to write on certain prompts. Pick the essay that is most interesting while still matching the prompt given. It might be too early to start essays in 10th grade because a lot of the supplements change for colleges. That being said the common app prompts are always fairly generic so you could probably look at those. </p>