Hello all, I was wondering about writing an essay on the topic that follows. I come from a family where education is valued very highly and all in my family have done incredibly well for themselves. My idea is to write about how my sister dropping out of high school because of severe anxiety and depression changed my outlook on people. I want to show how it made me realize that things aren’t always how they seem to be in the sense that a high school dropout is not just some lazy lowlife. Would this show enough about me as a person to submit to a college?
Could be a good story, but I’d try to avoid a pat “epiphany.”
And try to avoid the phrase “lazy lowlife.”
It sounds to me like the essay is more about your sister than you…make sure it portrays who you are as a person and how you have grown.
This is a topic that could be fruitful for you to explore in your essay. As stated above, I would be careful to make sure that you are the focus of the essay and not your sister. How did you feel when your sister dropped out? How have did your emotions and assumptions change over time? Have you taken any action based on this experience? Would you consider following a different educational path as a result of this experience?
I think I’m going to pose it as a comparison between how I saw it and how all of her peers saw it and then contrast their perspectives with mine. Then, the discrepancies will lead me to the realization that things are not always as they seem. I will then reflect on a past event where I judged someone who I knew had dropped out of high school prior to this event and how it was wrong of me to judge without knowing the full story. It sounds a lot more cheesy writing about it than it actually is…
It does sound pretty cheesy, honestly. I think it’s a good idea to write about, though, but you have to frame it a certain way–like others said, it needs to be about you. Do you know what you want to study in college? Maybe relate the experience of your sister dropping out to you realizing that, no matter what your family has raised you to believe, education is not the most important thing or a marker of intelligence or success–maybe say that it changed your outlook on college. Maybe talk about how your sister pursuing her own path in order to prioritize her mental health and wellbeing made you reconsider your own priorities, and you realized that college is something you want to do because of x, y or z, based around your personal priorities, instead of something you are doing because your parents expect it of you. Going the “not everything is as it seems!” route is a little cliche or overdone, and doesn’t really tell admissions officers what it is about you that is unique or interesting, or what it is that will make you a good student at their school. What they do want is something personal, and telling your personal story about your sister and relating it to your passions and goals instead of some cliche life lesson is, in my opinion, a much stronger way to go.