Common App Essay Help Needed!

Parents Forum
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<p>How could it not? That prompt is like an the desert oasis in cartoons. All tempting with cool waters, palm fronds, and belly dancers. When you finally get there, it turns out to be just desert heat shimmering off the sand.</p>

<p>I really think that these essays are much easier when writing about something that actually happened in the student's life. Just a "nice, little essay" that communicates some positive aspect of personality. That way, the starting point can literally be a stream-of-consciousness journal-style description of the event, from which interesting nuggets for an actual essay with structure will emerge.</p>

<p>I've thought a bit about what my daughter could have written if forced to answer this question. I think it probably would have had to have been a story about her lust for Darcy in "Pride and Predjudice" and it probably would have had to have been written tongue in cheek, as the the only way to avoid "book report syndrome". But, at the end of the day, would that topic really communicate the single most positive "sales feature" of my daughter's personality/talent/experience as effectively as writing about something real in her life? That prompt is a tough challenge, IMO.</p>

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<p>My S had to write about a book for one of his Umich essays. He chose Catch-22, and rather than it being a book report, he focused on what the values of the book are, and how they influenced/reflected his own.</p>

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<p>If colleges really wanted to make the essay truely personal works I always thought that ETS could play a great role. Give the applicants 45 minutes to write an essay based on 1 of 2 UofChicago type topics. All ETS would have to do would be to email jpeg copies of the essay to the schools applied to. The colleges would have the raw, uncoached work of the students. And the students would be done with the essay in 45 minutes! </p>

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<p>originaloog - I think this is exactly what will happen with the new writing portion of the SAT - the colleges are going to have the option of receiving the essays for each applicant. It will be hard to hide bad writing then. I myself think it is a positive step.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the info Carolyn. I had not heard that. I wonder what will happen to an applicant if the quality of the SAT 1 writing is significantly worser(;-)) than the application essay? Adcoms will have to make some judgements about ability to write under stress and time constraints and integrity issues. Is the app essay actually the students own work? Can the student write without a computer spell/grammar check?</p>

<p>But I think that the ability of colleges to review an applicant's raw and uncoached written work is valuable and will probably reduce the degree to which outside help is asked for.</p>